A 


C  LEAR 


UC-NRLF 


The  Kindergarten  and  the 
Montessori  Method 

An  Attempt  at  Synthesis 

\ 

MARTHA  MAC  LEAR,  A.  M. 

Assistant  Professor  of  Elementary  Education 

Director    of     Kindergarten     Education 

PI o ward  University,  Washington,  D.  C. 

WITH    AN    INTRODUCTION    BY 

G.  STANLEY  HALL 


BOSTON:   RICHARD  G.  BADGER 

TORONTO:      THE    COPP    CLARK   CO.,    LIMITED 


Copyright,  19x5,  by  Richard  G.  Badger 


All  Rights  Reserved 


oV 


THB  GORHAM  PRESS,  BOSTON,  U.  S.  A. 


PREFACE 

President's  Office.  CLARK'S  UNIVERSITY. 

WORCESTER,   MASSACHUSETTS, 

November  18,   1914. 
Miss  Martha  MacLear, 
Howard  University, 
Washington,  D.  C. 

DEAR  MADAM: — Yesterday  I  had  practically  all  of 
your  entire  manuscript,  "The  Kindergarten  and  the  Mon- 
tessori  Method,"  read  aloud  to  me.  I  liked  both  the 
style  and  the  matter  very  much.  You  certainly  have  a 
very  happy,  fluent  and  lucid  way  of  expressing  your  ideas, 
and  naturally  the  conception  of  bringing  together  the  ideas 
of  Froebel,  Montessori  and  genetic  psychology  and  ex- 
perimental psychology  struck  me  as  a  desideratum  I  had 
long  been  waiting  to  see.  I  regret  to  say  that  as  I  have 
mislaid  your  first  letter  I  do  not  recall  with  certainty  ex- 
actly what  you  expected  of  me  in  sending  your  manuscript. 
If  it  was  to  get  my  reaction  to  it,  you  have  it  above.  If 
it  was  to  have  it  printed  in  my  journal,  I  regret  to  say 
that  it  is  much  too  long  and  a  little  outside  the  field  my 
journal  is  coming  more  and  more  to  commit  itself  to. 

As  to  chances  of  publication  for  the  kindergarten  arti- 
cle, in  book  form,  I  am  afraid  my  opinion  would  not  be 
worth  very  much.  I  think  the  effect  of  the  present  war 
is  depressing  upon  all  publications  and  tends  to  make 
houses  more  careful. 

The  only  practical  suggestion  I  can  make  is  that  if  you 

333868 


could  induce  Professor  Patty  Hill  of  Teachers  College, 
Columbia  University,  to  pass  upon  your  manuscript,  I 
think  you  would  have  the  best  authority  in  the  United 
States,  as  she  is  in  my  estimation  the  first  thinker  on  the 
subject  we  have.  She  is  progressive  and  I  feel  sure  would 
be  in  hearty  sympathy  with  the  trend  of  your  book.  Why 
not  write  her,  using  my  name  if  you  wish  for  I  know 
her  well,  and  ask  her  if  she  will  look  it  over  and  advise? 

If  I  can  do  any  more  at  any  time  I  shall  be  most  happy 
to  do  so.  It  is  a  very  good  treatise  and  ought  to  be  acces- 
sible to  all  the  kindergartners  of  the  country. 

Thanking  you  for  letting  me  see  your  manuscripts,  I 
am 

Very  truly  yours, 

G.  STANLEY  HALL. 


CONTENTS 
CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.     The    Kindergarten    9 

II.     The  Montessori  Method   20 

III.  An    Adjustment    32 

IV.  Gifts 42 

V.     Hand-work    52 

VI.  Music  63 

VII.  Games  79 

VIII.  Stories  89 

IX.  Nature  Study  102 

Conclusion  ,  .  1 1 1 


The  Kindergarten  and  the 
Montessori  Method 

CHAPTER  I 
THE  KINDERGARTEN 

FOR  the  past  fifty  years  the  kindergarten  has  oc- 
cupied a  unique  place  in  the  educational  system. 
Brought  to  America  by  cultured  German  immi- 
grants, its  worth  was  soon  appreciated  in  Bos- 
ton, then  the  hub  of  America.     Then  followed  years  of 
support  by  private   associations   until,   about  twenty-five 
years  ago,  cities  in  various  parts  of  the  country  began  to 
incorporate  it  into  their  school  systems.     But  the  end  is 
not  yet  for  there  still  remains  a  large  field  to  cover  where 
kindergartens  are  not  and  there  are  still  many  believers  in 
traditional  things  who  are  as  yet  unconverted  to  its  value. 
For,  in  spite  of  many  obvious  short-comings,  the  kinder- 
garten has  great  value. 

This  phase  of  education,  planned  for  children  from 
four  to  six  years  of  age,  is  based  on  the  philosophy  of  / 
Frederick  Froebel.  In  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth 
century  Froebel  began  his  work  for  little  children.  Al- 
though his  interest  up  to  this  time  had  been  in  secondary 
education,  he  began  to  realize  that  little  or  nothing  was 
being  done  for  the  education  of  young  children.  To  meet 
this  need  he  devised  a  plan  of  education  suitable  for  such 

9 


io  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

children  and  gave  it  the  appropriate  name  of  kindergar- 
ten— garden  of  children.  The  scheme  of  work  which  he 
planned  for  this  school  was  based  primarily  upon  his  ideal- 
istic philosophy. 

Like  many  thinkers  of  the  late  eighteenth  and  early 
nineteenth  centuries  Froebel  was  seeking  a  definition  of 
reality.  This  definition  he  found,  not  in  matter  as  had 
been  the  thought  of  Herbert  and  Pestalozzi,  but  in  spirit. 
To  him  spirit  was  the  all  pervading,  the  all  penetrating 
essence  of  each  individual  thing  in  nature  and  in  man. 

"In  all  things  there  lives  and  reigns  an  eternal  law.  To 
him  whose  mind,  through  disposition  and  faith,  is  filled, 
penetrated,  and  quickened  with  the  necessity  that  this  can 
not  possibly  be  otherwise,  as  well  as  to  him  whose  clear, 
calm,  mental  vision  beholds  the  inner  in  the  outer  and 
through  the  outer,  and  sees  the  outer  proceeding  with 
logical  necessity  from  the  essence  of  the  inner,  this  law  has 
been  and  is  announced  with  equal  clearness  and  distinct- 
ness in  nature  ( the  external ) ,  in  the  spirit  ( the  internal ) , 
and  in  life  which  unites  the  two.  This  all-controlling  law 
is  necessarily  based  on  an  all-pervading,  energetic,  living, 
self-conscious,  and  hence  eternal  Unity.  This  fact,  as 
well  as  the  Unity  itself,  is  again  vividly  recognized,  eith- 
er through  faith  or  through  insight,  with  equal  clearness 
and  comprehensiveness;  therefore,  a  quietly  observant  hu- 
man mind,  a  thoughtful,  clear  human  intellect,  has  never 
failed,  and  will  never  fail,  to  recognize  this  Unity. 

"This  Unity  is  God.  All  things  have  come  from  the 
Divine  Unity,  from  God,  and  have  their  origin  in  the  Di- 
vine Unity,  in  God  alone.  God  is  the  sole  source  of  all 
things.  In  all  things  there  lives  and  reigns  the  Divine 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  11 

Unity,  God.  All  things  live  and  have  their  being  in  and 
through  the  Divine  Unity,  in  and  through  God.  All 
things  are  only  through  the  divine  effluence  that  lives  in 
them.  The  divine  effluence  that  lives  in  each  thing  is  the 
essence  of  each  thing."* 

Hence  since  spirit  or  God  pervades  all  things,  there  ex- 
ists among  all  things  a  unity  or  an  inner-connectedness 
which  binds  all  things  together.  And  there  arises  the 
necessity  of  studying  nature  and  natural  phenomena  be- 
cause in  such  study  we  are  studying  God.  So  we  find, 
in  the  kindergarten,  a  spirit  of  co-operation  between  teach- 
ers and  pupils,  and  of  kindly  feeling  among  the  children. 
The  course  of  study  itself  bears  out  this  ideal  for  it  is 
based  upon  life  activities.  Such  typical  and  necessary  ac- 
tivities as  those  of  the  baker,  the  market,  the  milkman,  the 
farmer  are  taken  up  and  studied  with  the  purpose  of 
showing  how  dependent  each  member  of  the  community 
is  on  every  other  member  and  that  good  to  all  can  result 
only  from  each  one  doing  his  part. 

Froebel  carried  over  into  education  a  scientific  princi- 
ple which  was  later  formulated  by  Larmarck  and  Darwin. 
This  principle  of  organic  evolution  Froebel  applied  to  ed- 
ucation and  worked  out  from  it  a  scheme  whereby  each 
part  of  education  should  be  related  to  and  dependent  up- 
on what  had  gone  before.  Hence  education  is  not  a  pro- 
cess of  grafting  on  something  extraneous  to  the  child  bu 
a  process  of  development.  In  the  Education  of  Man  this 
general  philosophic  .ideal  is  stated — "God  creates  and 
works  productively  in  uninterrupted  continuity.  Each 


*Froebel — Educator  of  Man,  paragraph  I. 


12  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

thought  of  God  is  a  work,  a  deed,  a  product,  and  each 
thought  of  God  continues  to  work  with  creative  power  in 
endless  productive  activity  to  all  eternity."  Again,  "God 
neither  ingrafts  nor  inoculates.  He  develops  the  most  triv- 
ial and  imperfect  things  in  continuously  ascending  series, 
and  in  accordance  with  eternal,  self-grounded  and  self- 
cleveloping  laws." 

I  The  process  by  which  the  mind  takes  hold  of  things 

aiid  works  out  its  own  development  is  self -activity.     For 

£he  mind  is  not  so  much  possessed  of  activity,  it  is  activity. 

/Through  this  activity  it  realizes  itself,  it  builds  up  its  own 

/  world,  it  becomes  conscious  of  itself  and  it  works  out  its 

/  own  destiny.     Therefore  it  is  the  duty  of  education  to 

provide  ways  and  means  by  which  the  mind,  by  means  of 

self-activity,  may  work  out  its  eternal  destiny. 

The  kindergarten  has  endeavored  in  three  ways  to  work 
out  these  fundamental  principles  of  Froebel — by  Symbol- 
ism, by  motor  expression,  and  by  a  conception  of  the 
school  as  a  miniature  society. 

Symbolism  is  a  direct  outgrowth  of  Froebel's  belief  in 
the  underlying  unity  of  all  life.  This  belief,  re-en  forced 
by  his  deeply  religious  nature,  led  him  to  the  mistaken 
notion  that  the  same  processes  of  change  are  found  in 
physical  development  as  occur  in  spiritual  or  mental  and 
social  development.  Therefore  it  must  follow  that  a 
study  of  changes  or  laws  in  one  of  these  realms  must  in- 
form a  person  concerning  similar  changes  in  the  other 
realms.  That  is,  that  a  study  of  the  laws  of  crystalliza- 
tion will  teach  one  the  laws  of  psychology  and  sociology. 
In  his  Autobiography,  Froebel  states  this  position : 

"A  life  of  more  than  thirty  years  with  nature,  often 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  13 

it  is  true,  falling  back  and  clouded  for  great  intervals,  has 
taught  me  to  know  this,  especially  the  plant  and  tree 
world,  as  a  mirror,  I  might  say,  an  emblem  of  man's  life 
in  its  highest  spiritual  relations ;  so  that  I  look  upon  it  as 
one  of  the  greatest  and  deepest  conceptions  of  human  life 
and  spirit  when  in  holy  scripture  the  comparison  of  good 
and  evil  is  drawn  from  a  tree.  Nature,  as  a  whole,  even 
the  realms  of  crystals  and  stones,  teaches  us  to  discrimi- 
nate good  from  evil;  but,  for  me,  not  so  powerfully, 
quietly,  clearly,  and  openly  as  the  plant  and  flower  king- 
dom." 

This  abstract  principle  Froebel  worked  out  in  concrete 
form  for  the  education  of  little  children.  He  maintained 
that  children  are  capable  of  appreciating  symbolic  analo- 
gies and  that  it  is  important  that  they  do  so.  With  this 
end  in  view  he  worked  out  a  series  of  playthings  and 
games  in  which  he  made  provision  for  this  need.  In  his 
Pedagogics  of  the  Kindergarten  he  thus  speaks  of  the  prin- 
ciple as  underlying  the  plays  with  the  balls,  the  cube  and 
the  games. 

"The  child  *  *  *  perceives  in  the  ball  the  gen- 
eral expression  of  each  object  as  well  as  of  itself  (the 
child)  as  a  self-dependent  whole  and  unity  *  *  * 
so  the  child  likes  to  employ  himself  with  the  ball,  even 
early  in  life,  in  order  to  cultivate  and  fashion  himself, 
though  unconsciously,  through  and  by  it,  as  that  which 
is  his  opposite  and  yet  resembles  him. 

"The  cube  is  to  the  child  the  representative  of  each 
continually  developing  manifold  body.  The  child  has  an 
intimation  in  it  of  the  unity  which  lies  at  the  foundation 
of  all  manifoldness  and  from  which  the  latter  proceeds. 


H  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

"The  pleasure  with  which  the  children  play  these 
games  and  others  of  a  similar  kind  may  therefore  have  its 
ground  in  a  presentiment  of  what  is  symbolic  and  signifi- 
cant in  them.  May  not  their  delight  in  these  encircling 
movements,  for  example,  spring  from  the  longing  and  the 
effort  to  get  an  all-round  or  all-sided  grasp  of  an  object? 
*  *  *  I  am  convinced  that  the  exalted  and  often  ec- 
static delight  of  children  in  their  simple  movement  plays 
is  by  no  means  to  be  explained  through  the  exertion  of 
mere  physical  force — mere  bodily  activity.  The  true 
source  of  their  joy  is  the  dim  premonition  which  stirs  their 
sensitive  hearts  that  in  their  play  there  is  hidden  a  deep 
significance;  that  it  is,  in  fact,  the  husk  within  which  is 
concealed  the  kernel  of  a  living  spiritual  truth." 

In  the  beginning  of  the  kindergarten  movement  sym- 
bolism, especially  in  the  use  of  the  gifts,  was  counted  a 
necessary  part  of  their  use.  It  was  contended  that  their 
value  lay  in  their  orderly  progression  and  in  the  symbolic 
significance  underlying  them.  But  gradually  this  belief 
has  been  modified  and  there  is  an  increasingly  large  num- 
ber of  kindergarten  teachers  who  have  discarded  this  the- 
ory as  phantastic  and  absurd.  Such  a  change  of  belief 
must  necessarily  be  made  in  view  of  the  developments  of 
modern  psychology.  For  it  is  only  too  apparent  that  the 
child  cannot  and  does  not  grasp  any  such  underlying  mean- 
ing. In  the  Elementary  School  Record,  Dewey  points  out 
the  impossibility  of  the  child's  experiencing  the  symbolic 
meaning  of  a  thing  in  the  way  in  which  Froebel  intended 
that  he  should. 

"Practically  all  he  (the  child)  gets  out  of  it  is  its  own 
physical  and  sensational  meaning,  plus,  very  often,  a  glib 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  15 

facility  in  phrases  and  attitudes  that  he  learns  are  expected 
of  him  by  the  teacher — without,  however,  any  mental 
counterpart.  We  often  teach  insincerity,  and  instill  sen- 
timentalism,  and  foster  sensationalism  when  we  think  we 
are  teaching  truths  by  means  of  symbols.  The  realities 
reproduced,  therefore,  by  the  child  should  be  of  as  fami- 
liar, direct  and  real  a  character  as  possible.  It  is  largely 
for  this  reason  that  in  the  kindergarten  of  our  school  th3  | 
work  centers  so  largely  about  the  reproduction  of  home 
and  neighborhood  life." 

Also  Dr.  Thorndike,  in  his  "Notes  on  Child  Study," 
makes  a  similar  criticism: 

"And  what  shall  I  say  of  those  who  by  a  most  extra- 
ordinary intellectual  perversity  attribute  to  children  the 
habit  of  using  common  things  as  symbols  of  abstractions 
which  have  never  in  any  way  entered  their  heads,  who 
tell  us  that  the  girl  likes  to  play  with  her  doll  because  the 
play  symbolizes  to  her  motherhood;  that  the  boy  likes  to 
be  out  of  doors  because  the  sunlight  symbolizes  to  him 
cheerfulness?  *  *  * 

"If  we  live  in  houses  because  they  symbolize  protection, 
if  we  like  to  see  Sherlock  Holmes  on  the  stage  because  he 
symbolizes  to  us  craft,  or  Uncle  Tom  becauses  he  symbol- 
izes to  us  slavery,  or  a  clown  from  the  circus  because  he 
symbolizes  to  us  folly;  if  we  eat  apples  because  they  sym- 
bolize to  us  the  fall  of  man,  or  strawberries  because  they 
symbolize  to  us  the  Scarlet  Woman,  then  perhaps  the 
children  play  with  the  ball  because  it  symbolizes  infinite 
development  and  absolute  limitation. 

"No  one  has  ever  given  a  particle  of  valid  evidence  to 
show  any  such  preposterous  associations  in  children's 


16  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

minds  between  plain  things  and  these  far-away  abstrac- 
tions." 

Froebel's  belief  in  reality  as  spirit  and  that  the  essence 
of  man  is  spirit  which  must  be  provided  with  ways  and 
means  for  its  unfolding  was  worked  out  primarily  in  his 
provision  for  motor  expression.  For  since  man  is  made 
in  the  image  of  God,  the  Great  Creator,  he  must  neces- 
sarily create  and  bring  forth  like  God.  For  men  stimu- 
late their  own  mental  activity  and  more  effectively  pro- 
mote human  welfare  much  more  by  what  they  produce 
themselves  than  by  what  they  may  have  acquired  from 
others.  It  has  become  a  truism  to  say  that  we  never 
know  a  thing  until  we  teach  it.  Also  it  is  much  more 
developing  and  strengthening  to  learn  a  thing  by  doing 
than  it  is  by  receiving  it  merely  through  verbal  commun- 
ication. Therefore  representations  in  life  and  through 
doing,  joined  with  thought  and  speech,  are  much  more 
educative  than  merely  verbal  representations  of  ideas. 
Therefore  the  child  should  be  trained  primarily  for  crea- 

^tive  work — play,  building,  modeling.  In  less  complex 
times,  under  more  simple  conditions,  this  need  was  met 
through  the  child 's  instinctive  desire  to  imitate  the  activi- 
ties of  those  around  him.  In  so  doing  he  found  scope  for 
lis  activity  by  working  in  the  garden,  by  doing  chores 
iround  the  house  and  by  the  hundred  and  one  things 
which  needed  to  be  done  when  life  was  simple.  Now, 
when  these  things  are  all  done  for  us,  when  life  in  the 
lome  has  become  simplified,  the  school  must  provide  the 
opportunity  for  such  work  which  is  so  necessary  for 

/proper  development. 

Froebel  planned   four  fundamental   modes  of  self-ex- 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  17 

pression  desirable  for  young  children.  These  were  sing- 
ing, drawing,  painting  and  modeling.  Later  these  were 
added  to  and  all  the  work  included  under  the  names  gifts 
and  occupations  came  to  be  included. 

At  the  present  time  many  of  those  Froebelian  gifts  and 
occupations  have  been  excluded,  in  the  belief  that  other 
material  of  more  educational  value  can  be  found.  But 
the  fundamental  principle  of  the  need  and  value  for  mo- 
tor expression  has  been  retained. 

Since  God  is  the  creator  of  all  things  and  since  there 
is  a  spark  of  divinity  in  all  men,  it  follows  therefore  that 
all  men  are  brothers.  Although  this  has  been  preached 
for  many  ages,  the  practical  significance  of  it  has  seldom 
been  brought  out.  Froebel  found  this  only  too  true  as 
shown  in  the  lack  of  co-operation  shown  by  adults.  And 
he  came  to  the  conclusion  that  such  a  spirit  of  co-operation 
in  brotherly  love  could  be  brought  about  only  through 
habits  formed  in  childhood.  Hence  he  formulated  his 
theory  of  the  school  as  a  miniature  society.  Here  should 
be  found  and  matured  the  activities  and  virtues  which  go 
to  make  up  an  ideal  state. 

The  whole  atmosphere  of  the  school  should  contribute 
to  this  end,  as  well  as  the  attitude  of  the  teacher.  But 
the  chief  contribution  should  be  co-operative  play.  This 
may  mean  play  with  materials,  as  blocks,  or  it  may  mean 
physical  play.  The  children  may  possibly  unite  in  build- 
ing a  city  with  blocks  or  they  may  join  in  furnishing  a 
doll  house  for  the  pleasure  of  all.  On  the  other  hand, 
in  physical  play,  it  is  by  no  means  physical  control  alone 
which  is  gained.  Moral  power  also  is  achieved.  In  any 
playground  may  be  seen  justice,  moderation,  self-control, 


1 8  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

truthfulness,  loyalty,  brotherly  love,  and  strict  imparti- 
ality. 

For  co-operation  is  a  fundamental  social  necessity  and 
virtue,  therefore  it  should  be  cultivated  from  infancy. 
This  can  be  done  naturally  and  effectively  since  in- 
stinctively a  child  has  a  tendency  to  co-operate.  And  no 
where  is  this  tendency  more  clearly  shown,  no  where  can 
it  be  more  easily  developed  than  in  co-operative  games. 

The  kindergarten  to-day  is  the  embodiment  of  Froebel's 
ideals  and  philosophy  augmented  by  the  best  educational 
thought  of  the  present  day.  That  this  is  not  true  of  all 
kindergartens  is  obvious.  That  it  is  true  of  an  increas- 
ingly large  number  cannot  be  disputed.  More  and  more 
kindergartners  are  asking,  not  "what  did  Froebel  say" 
but  "what  is  the  truth."  The  fact  that  the  teachings 
of  Froebel  form  a  large  part  of  the  curriculum  both  in 
the  training  school  and  in  the  kindergarten  does  not 
nullify  this  statement.  For,  in  spite  of  many  absurdities, 
there  is  a  large  amount  of  truth  in  Froebel's  educational 
philosophy.  And  it  seems  safe  to  predict  that  no  matter 
what  change  may  be  made  in  the  daily  routine  of  the 
kindergarten  back  of  it  all  will  always  lie  the  truth  in 
Froebel's  teaching. 

However,  more  and  more  teachers  and  leaders  in  the 
kindergarten  are  beginning  to  look  to  experimental  psy- 
chology and  child  study  for  their  justification.  More  and 
more  they  are  planning  to  co-operate  with  the  modern 
emphasis  on  child  hygiene  and  the  fresh  air  movement. 
More  and  more  they  are  beginning  to  relate  the  kinder- 
garten to  the  life  of  the  child  in  the  primary  school. 

Just  how  much  the  work  in  the  kindergarten  has  func- 
tioned in  the  life  of  the  child  it  is  difficult  to  determine. 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  19 

It  is  easier  to  say  what  he  should  have  learned.  Un- 
doubtedly the  products  of  a  year,  or  better  of  two  years 
spent  in  the  kindergarten,  should  be  a  sense  of  responsi- 
bility, a  gain  in  bodily  and  mental  control,  the  ability 
to  work  with  his  fellows,  a  certain  facility  in  handling 
material,  the  rudiments  of  music,  a  love  of  good  litera- 
ture based  on  a  store  of  good  tales,  a  certain  power  of 
self-expression  in  word,  song,  games,  or  handwork  and 
the  desire  to  encounter  new  tasks  and  the  perseverance 
and  ability  to  keep  at  them  until  they  are  accomplished. 

Whether  or  not  children  actually  carry  over  these 
desirable  traits  into  the  first  grade  is  a  matter  of  conjec- 
ture, influenced  more  or  less  by  the  personal  bias  of  the 
observer.  It  should  be  one  of  the  tasks  of  the  kinder- 
garten to  ascertain  the  facts  in  the  case  and  by  co-opera- 
tion with  first  grade  teachers,  to  make  sure  that  any 
advance  which  may  have  been  made  in  the  kindergarten, 
is  not  nullified  by  the  work  of  the  first  grade. 

The  kindergarten  is  not  a  static  phase  of  education. 
It  is  in  a  stage  of  growth  and  must  continue  to  grow  and 
to  change  as  new  truths  are  developed  in  the  educational 
field.  That  in  the  past  it  has  seemed  disinclined  to  change, 
that  it  has  appeared  to  cling  to  the  letter  and  not  to  the 
spirit  of  Froebel's  teachings  may  have  been  true  but  it 
is  not  true  to-day.  Rapid  steps  forward  are  being  taken. 
It  is  my  purpose  in  this  volume  to  designate  some  changes 
which  I  believe  are  necessary  before  the  kindergarten  can 
measure  up  to  its  great  opportunity.  These  changes,  I 
feel,  can  be  achieved  in  no  more  effective  way  than  by 
combining  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  Montessori 
system  with  the  best  that  is  found  in  the  kindergarten. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   MONTESSORI   METHOD 


f"        """^  HE  Montessori  method  is  the  product  of  one 

woman's  experimentation  with  a  theory  and 

doubtless   owes   much   of    its   extraordinarily 

vJL.        rapid  growth  to  the  impetus  given  it  by  the 

influence  of  her  wonderful  personality.     This  is  not  to 

deny  that  it  would  have  gained  a  hearing  on   its  own 

merits.     But  the  fact  of  personality  as  a  strong  factor  in 

its  propaganda  cannot  be  gainsaid. 

Dr.  Montessori  is  a  medical  doctor  "in  Rome  who, 
through  her  work  in  a  class  for  abnormal  children,  became 
much  interested  in  this  pressing  problem.  The  conclu- 
sion she  reached  was  that  abnormality  in  children,  rep- 
resented by  the  insane  or  the  defective,  is  a  pedagogical 
rather  than  a  medical  problem.  This  conclusion  she  an- 
nounced at  a  gathering  of  teachers  at  Turin  in  1898.  The 
address  fell  upon  fertile  soil  and  the  interest  aroused  was 
so  great  that  she  was  asked  to  deliver  a  course  of  lectures 
at  Rome  on  the  education  of  feeble  minded  children. 

This  course  led  to  further  study  on  Dr.  Montessori's 
part  at  the  University  of  Rome,  and  to  a  most  intensive 
private  study  of  the  works  of  Itard  and  Seguin,  two 
pioneers  in  the  field  of  abnormality.  The  result  of  this 
intensive  study  was  that  she  came  to  the  conclusion  that  a 
type  of  education  which  would  produce  such  wonderful 
results  with  defective  children  must  necessarily  be  bene- 

20 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  21 

ficial  and  work  big  results  with  normal  children. 

Her  opportunity  to  put  this  theory  into  practice  came. 
There  was  founded  in  Rome  an  association  for  Good 
Building.  The  object  of  the  association  was  to  improve 
the  homes  found  in  the  worst  quarters  of  Rome  and  to 
provide  some  educational  agency  which  would  insure  a 
proper  treatment  of  the  houses  by  the  tenants.  Here  Dr. 
Montessori  found  her  opportunity.  Here  were  opened 
the  first  schools  which  embodied  the  principles  worked 
out  so  carefully  by  her.  From  this  small  beginning,  the 
movement  has  spread  into  parts  of  the  world  as  far  dis- 
tant as  India  and  America.  It  has  aroused  the  interest 
of  the  non-technical  laymen  to  an  unprecedented  degree 
and  rivals  equal  suffrage  as  a  topic  of  interest  in  news- 
papers and  magazines.  That  the  theory  is  not  all  new, 
that  many  other  educators  have  theorized  along  the  same 
lines,  does  not  vitiate  the  worth  of  Dr.  Montessori's  mes- 
sage. She  seems  to  have  arrived  at  her  conclusions  inde- 
pendently and  above  all,  she  has  had  the  courage  to  carry 
them  out  to  their  rational  end. 

The  method  and  the  material  which  are  an  outgrowth 
of  that  method  are  based  on  the  theory  that  brain  develop- 
ment is  closely  connected  with  and  dependent  on  the  de- 
velopment of  the  hand.  The  ancestor  of  man  in  the  very 
early  stages  of  growth  attained  his  .superiority  over  the 
brutes  through  the  use  of  his  forefeet  as  hands.  In  doing 
this  he  not  only  developed  his  hands  but  his  brain  as  well. 
So  that  in  the  evolutionary  process  it  was  the  animals  with 
well-developed  hands  and  brains  who  survived. 

Various  experiments  have  been  made  to  authenticate 
this  fact.  It  has  been  found  that  the  speech  area  in  the 


22  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

brain  of  right  handed  persons  is  on  the  left  side,  while 
that  of  left  handed  persons  is  on  the  right  side.  Also  in 
testing  two  hundred  children  to  ascertain  the  relation  be- 
tween slowness  of  hand  movements  and  rate  of  movement 
of  brain  processes  the  same  relation  was  found.  The  chil- 
dren were  first  divided  into  two  groups,  the  division  being 
made  according  to  their  mental  capacity.  In  the  group 
composed  of  good  learners,  it  was  found  that  62%  were 
quick  with  their  muscles,  30%  were  normal  while  only 
8%  were  slow.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  backward 
group,  there  were  none  who  were  quick  in  muscular 
action,  only  25%  possessed  normal  control  over  their 
muscles,  35%  were  slow  and  40%  were  strikingly  slow 
and  halting  in  their  movements. 

In  the  history  of  the  race  there  is  a  close  connection 
between  the  development  of  the  brain  and  that  of  the 
hand.  Gesture  is  certainly  the  parent  of  speech.  For  man 
communicated  with  his  fellows  by  means  of  signs  long 
before  he  was  able  to  articulate  words. 

In  view  of  these  facts  it  would  seem  only  rational  to 
spend  the  first  year  of  conscious  education  of  the  child  on 
the  training  of  the  senses.  For  in  doing  this  we  shall 
not  only  provide  a  much  needed  education  of  our  rather 
defective  senses  but  shall  cultivate  the  brain  as  well.  The 
importance  of  this,  as  a  first  step  in  education,  can  hardly 
be  over-estimated.  The  need  of  such  training  can  be 
appreciated  when  a  comparison  is  made  between  those  who 
have  received  such  training  and  those  who  have  not.  The 
ear  of  the  musician  can  hear  notes  and  harmonies,  can 
appreciate  sequences  of  themes  and  repetition  of  motifs, 
which  are  entirely  lost  on  the  average  listener.  The  eye 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  23 

of  a  trained  scientist  can  see  properties  in  a  drop  of  blood 
under  the  microscope  which  are  completely  hidden  from 
an  ordinary  observer.  An  artist  can  see  colors  in  the 
landscape,  can  appreciate  combinations  of  colors  which 
add  greatly  to  his  enjoyment  of  life.  Although  it  is  not 
possible  and  would  not  be  desirable  to  achieve  such  results 
with  every  child,  yet  an  approximation  of  such  skill  would 
undoubtedly  add  greatly  to  the  joy  of  living. 

On  the  other  hand  such  training  reveals  very  clearly 
to  the  teacher  many  defects  which  might  otherwise  pass 
unnoticed.  The  demands  on  our  senses  of  the  ordinary 
inutine  of  daily  living  is  so  slight  that  such  defects  are 
often  overlooked  until  they  are  hardened  into  defects 
which  can  not  be  cured. 

Dr.  Montessori  felt  the  need  and  the  value  of  such 
training  but  she  realized  that  it  could  be  of  little  use 
unless  it  were  built  upon  the  spontaneous  activity  of  the 
child.  In  stressing  this  she  has  but  followed  the  path 
opened  by  all  modern  education.  For  what  is  the  spon- 
taneous activity  of  the  child  but  its  ability  to  react  in  many 
different  ways  to  its  environment.  In  other  words,  in- 
sistence on  spontaneity  as  the  requisite  for  education  is 
simply  saying  that  a  child's  tendencies  can  be  modified — 
that  he  is  an  educable  being. 

But  in  the  beginning  he  needs  no  education  for  the 
spontaneous  activity  supplied  by  nature  provides  all  the 
education  necessary.  The  wigglings  and  twistings  of  a 
baby  are  not  valueless.  Watch  an  eight  months  old  baby 
squirming  along  the  floor ;  every  feature  from  the  laughing 
eyes  to  the  laughing  mouth — every  sound,  from  the  low 
soft  chortle  of  satisfaction  to  the  wild  scream  of  success — 


24  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

all  join  to  show  how  great  is  the  pleasure  of  learning  to 
walk.  So  it  is  with  the  fundamental  activities.  But  soon 
there  comes  a  time  when  spontaneity  of  itself  cannot  pro- 
vide all  the  training  necessary  and  here  conscious  educa- 
tion must  step  in.  The  determining  factor  in  this  process, 
Dr.  Montessori  claims  should  parallel  the  different  stages 
of  race  development. 

The  culture  epoch  theory  was  suggested  in  the  eigh- 
teenth century  but  was  not  definately  formulated  until  the 
nineteenth.  Many  distinguishd  names  have  been  con- 
nected with  this  view,  as  Hegel,  Goethe,  Herbart,  Spencer. 
Although  the  theory  may  not  be  accepted  literally  it  can- 
not be  denied  that  there  are  many  points  of  similarity  be- 
tween the  young  child  and  the  savage.  There  is  found  a 
resemblance  in  many  instinctive  activities,  such  as  the 
sudden  temperamental  changes  to  which  savages  and  chil- 
dren are  both  prone,  their  impulsiveness,  their  lack  of 
power  to  control  present  actions  by  taking  thought  for 
future  consequences,  their  little  vanities  and  egoisms  as 
well  as  their  delight  in  strong  contrasts  and  colors. 

There  are  other  evidences  of  this  in  the  delight  which 
children  take  in  games  of  concealment  like  peep-a-boo  or 
hide  and  seek,  in  hunting  games  and  tribal  games  where 
one  is  a  captain;  in  their  delight  in  caring  for  pets  and 
their  preference  for  crude  and  simple  playthings.  How- 
ever, even  though  we  grant  all  this,  the  extent  of  our 
ignorance  is  so  great  that  we  are  not  able  to  lay  down 
any  hard  and  fast  line  of  demarcation.  In  fact  it  is  im- 
possible to  tell  what  echoes  of  the  past  would  appear  in 
a  normal  child  in  a  normal  environment.  And  although 
Dr.  Montessori  has  laid  down  the  dictum  that  the  educa- 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  25 

tion  of  the  child  should  follow  the  development  of  the 
race,  and  that  the  fullest  liberty  should  be  given  for  the 
play  of  the  child's  spontaneous  activity,  yet  the  Montessori 
method  has  for  its  underlying  principle  the  provision  of  an 
environment  which  shall  be  so  unfavorable  to  certain  of 
these  spontaneous  tendencies  that  they  die  a  very  un- 
natural death. 

Among  the  many  spontaneous  activities  of  all  organ- 
isms, two  may  be  cited  as  fundamental.  These  are  the 
tendency  to  repel  or  avoid  hurtful  experiences  and  the 
tendency  to  attract  or  repeat  pleasurable  ones.  In  the 
past  these  tendencies  have  been  the  prime  incentives  in 
education  and  have  been  considered  adequate  for  all  de- 
mands made  on  them.  If  a  student  were  unruly  and  re- 
fused to  learn  the  proper  amount  of  Latin  grammar  or 
to  recite  in  the  exact  words  of  Cicero,  the  tendency  to 
avoid  pain,  as  represented  by  the  birch  rod,  was  consid- 
ered an  adequate  incentive.  This  kind  of  doing,  that  is 
performing  an  act  for  some  reason  other  than  the  joy  of 
performance,  may  be  called  indirect  or  secondary  spon- 
taneity. While  direct  or  primary  spontaneity  would  be 
the  desire  to  perform  an  act  simply  from  the  desire  to 
exercise  the  activity.  In  regard  to  the  education  of  the 
senses  and  muscles,  Dr.  Montessori  has  been  guided  as 
completely  as  possible  by  the  direct  or  primary  spontanei- 
ties, this  is,  for  the  most  part,  true  in  regard  to  intellect- 
ual activity  but,  in  regard  to  the  activities  which  relate  to 
social  conduct,  she  is  guided  not  by  the  child's  primary 
spontaneous  activities  but  by  her  own  conception  of  what 
is  desirable  conduct  and  in  inculcating  these  conceptions 
upon  the  child,  she  relies  chiefly  on  sympathetic  encour- 


26  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

agement,  and  on  the  child's  spontaneous  desire  to  please 
those  who  treat  him  kindly.  However,  she  does  not  hesi- 
tate to  employ  whatever  measure  of  discipline  may  be  re- 
quired to  suppress  anti-social  conduct  in  the  case  of  nor- 
mal children.  But  she  is  far  ahead  of  the  average  teacher 
in  her  insistence  on  the  medical  examination  of  refractory 
children.  Her  belief  is  that,  at  an  early  age,  moral  de- 
fects are  usually  founded  on  physical  infirmities. 

Although  Dr.  Montessori  bases  her  method  of  educa- 
tion on  the  spontaneity  or  freedom  of  the  child,  this  does 
not  mean  that  she  uses  always  the  direct  or  primary  spon- 
taneity, for  she  uses  the  secondary  or  indirect  .as  well,  and 
grafts  tendencies  on  it  which  seem  to  her  desirable.  This 
practice  has  been  used  always  in  education,  viz.  the  ten- 
dency to  learn  Latin  grafted  on  to  the  tendency  to  avoid 
pain.  But  the  new  education  has  made  a  different  ap- 
plication of  the  principle.  The  new  education  is  quite 
ready  to  graft  one  tendency  on  another  but  it  chooses  its 
tendencies  with  greater  care.  Therefore,  it  lays  great 
stress  on  the  observation  of  the  child,  so  as  to  find  out 
what  the  child's  spontaneous  tendencies  are,  in  order  that 
they  may  be  utilized  at  the  proper  time.  Then  it  usually 
casts  about  for  some  more  fundamental  tendency  on  which 
the  new  tendencies  may  be  grafted  and  made  permanent. 
It  is  to  Dr.  Montessori's  credit  that  she  has  applied  the 
modern  view  with  an  unprecented  thoroughness. 

The  modern  method  of  grafting  on  to  a  fundamental 
tendency,  a  specific  tendency  which  we  wish  to  endure, 
as  encouraging  a  boy  to  collect  stamps  at  a  time  when  the 
collecting  instinct  is  at  its  height,  does  result,  not  only 
in  increased  knowledge  on  the  part  of  the  pupil  but  also 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  27 

has  a  civilizing  effect  on  character.  For  it  is  of  the  very 
essence  of  civilization  that  the  motives  which  we  share 
with  the  savages  and  the  brutes  should  become  less  and 
less  the  mainspring  of  our  actions.  The  desire  of  the  ani- 
mal or  savage  to  avoid  immediate  pain  must  be  trans- 
formed into  the  civilized  man's  desire  to  avoid  long  de- 
layed pain.  Also  the  very  nature  of  pain  and  pleasure  are 
transformed  and  take  on  a  spiritual  character. 

Dr.  Montessori  seeks  to  achieve  this  result  chiefly  by 
supplying  such  an  environment  that  good  character  must 
inevitably  result.  In  this  achievement  the  so-called  di- 
dactic material  is  not  the  main  factor,  important  as  that 
undoubtedly  is.  The  human  element  is  by  far  the  most 
important  factor  in  shaping  character.  Of  this  Dr.  Mon- 
tessori seems  to  be  unconscious  although  it  is  undoubtedly 
her  personality  and  not  the  material  which  has  worked 
such  wonders. 

The  second  general  principle  which  underlies  the  Mon- 
tessori method  is  the  principle  of  freedom.  This  principle 
appears  to  include  first — that  we  are  to  provide  full  op- 
portunity for  the  exercise  of  the  child's  motor  activities 
so  far  as  they  are  not  anti-social  and,  second,  that  while 
we  are  to  repress  anti-social  activities  we  are  to  do  so  with 
as  little  conflict  as  possible  between  the  child's  will  and 
opr  will.  In  other  words  one  important  part  of  educa- 
tion consists  in  correcting  mistakes  made  by  the  children. 
But  in  doing  this,  there  should  be  as  little  exertion  of 
authority  as  possible.  This  should  be  done,  not  so  much 
to  avoid  the  clashing  of  wills,  but  that  the  child  may  be 
led  to  depend  on  his  own  mental  processes  and  not  on  the 
assistance  of. the  teacher.  In  the  training  of  the  senses 


(Uti( 

V  MR 


28  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

and  goiuscles,  this  object  has  been  accomplished  very  suc- 
cessfully by  making  the  material  so  simple  that  the  child 
cannot  help  detecting  his  own  mistakes. 

Dr.  Montessori  lays  great  stress  on  the  suppression  of 
acts  which  are  anti-social.  She  emphasizes  especially  the 
importance  of  the  first  days  in  the  school  room.  This  is 
the  most  trying  time  for  the  inexperienced  Montessori 
teacher,  and  often  she  is  tempted  to  interpret  the  principle 
of  freedom  too  loosely.  Dr.  Montessori  writes  that  she 
"saw  children  with  their  feet  on  the  tables,  or  with  their 
fingers  in  their  noses,  and  no  intervention  was  made  to 
correct  them.  I  saw  others  push  their  companions,  and 
I  saw  dawn  in  the  faces  of  these  an  expression  of  violence, 
and  not  the  slightest  attention  on  the  part  of  the  teacher. 
Then  I  had  to  interfere,  to  show  with  what  absolute  rigor 
it  is  necessary  to  hinder,  and  little  by  little  to  suppress,  all 
those  things  which  we  must  not  do,  so  that  the  child  may 
come  to  discern  between  good  and  evil. 

If  discipline  is  to  be  fasting,  its  foundations  must  be 
laid  in  this  way,  and  these  first  days  are  the  most  difficult 
for  the  directress.  The  first  idea  that  the  child  must  ac- 
quire in  order  to  be  actively  disciplined,  is  that  of  the  dif- 
ference between  good  and  evil." 

Of  all  the  applications  of  the  principle  of  freedom, 
the  most  far-reaching  and  the  most  original  is  the  general 
liberty  of  the  school-room.  The  door  is  always  open,  so 
that  the  children  can  leave  when  they  desire — the  chairs 
and  tables  are  so  light  that  the  children  can  carry  them 
about  and  choose  their  own  places;  nor  need  they  sit 
longer  than  they  desire.  This  freedom  promotes  a  double 
purpose.  First,  it  promotes  the  welfare  of  the  pupil ;  next, 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  29 

it  helps  the  teacher  to  discover  the  natural  tendencies  of 
the  child. 

Children  have  sat  at  desks  so  long  that  it  seems  the  most  ] 
natural  thing  in  the  world  to  see  them  there.  On  the 
contrary,  it  is  the  most  unnatural.  For  keeping  a  stated 
position  is  harmful  not  only  to  the  general  health  but  it 
has  more  specific  ill-effects — such  as  chest  contraction, 
and  spinal  curvature  or  weakness.  Any  method  which 
succeeded  in  banishing  fixed  chairs  and  desks  from  the 
school  room  would  do  an  immense  amount  of  good. 

All  educationalists  are  agreed  on  the  importance  of\ 
founding  education  upon  a  study  of  the  child.  Dr.  Mon- 
tessori  argues  that  such  study  to  be  effective  must  be  made 
when  the  child  is  free  to  express  himself.  This  does  not 
happen  under  the  usual  regime  of  the  school-room.  There- 
fore she  has  gone  far  beyond  most  educators  in  applying 
this  knowledge  to  school-room  practice.  This  with  an 
insistence  on  the  value  of  repetition;  on  the  right  of  the 
child  to  do  its  own  thinking;  and  a  physiological  justifi- 
cation of  the  doctrine  of  liberty  may  be  mentioned  as 
other  important  points  in  her  system. 

In  striking  contrast  to  the  adult,  the  child  is  interested 
in  doing  simply  for  the  sake  of  doing.  Give  a  child  a 
pail  and  some  sand,  and  he  will  fill  and  empty  the  pail 
Ito  an  endless  extent.  In  education  it  is  important  that 
the  child  be  allowed  opportunity  to  satisfy  this  tendency. 
The  complaint  is  often  made  that  children  are  inat- 
tentive and  volatile.  Is  not  this  due  in  large  measure  to 
our  interference  with  the  young  child's  desire  to  repeat 
and  repeat  until  the  impulse  has  wor^n  itself  out.  We 
have  all  seen  nurses  and  even  those  who  should  know 


30  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

better  present  one  toy  after  another  to  the  child,  just  for 
the  pleasure  of  seeing  the  look  of  joy  on  its  face.  Not 
realizing  that  such  interference  must  necessarily  make  for 
lark  of  perseverance. 

(Nerve  cells  become  effective  only  through  long  con- 
tinued exercise  along  a  certain  channel.  Repetition  is 
;  therefore  as  necessary  for  their  development  as  digestion 
1  is  for  the  growth  of  the  body. 

It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  children  should  learn 
jto  do  their  own  thinking  and  yet  this  is  one  of  the  very 
'  pings  which  even  the  most  indulgent  mother  would  deny 
them.  Naturally  we  are  all  interested  in  and  take  delight 
in  watching  the  physical  development  of  a  child.  We  are 
content  to  stand  back  and  see  the  baby  crawl  around  the 
floor  or  roll  over  and  over  a  pillow.  But  we  are  not  will- 
ing to  sit  quietly  by  while  a  child  puzzles  out  for  himself 
the  answer  to  some  perplexing  thought.  And  yet  this  is 
of  equal  importance! 

Perhaps  the  reason  for  this  difference  may  be  found  in 
the  fact  that  we  can  watch  the  physical  processes,  while 
the  mental  processes  are  hidden  from  us.  So  that  we  lose 
sight  of  their  importance  and  look  only  for  the  result, 
as  if  that  were  the  important  thing.  This  is  such  a 
common  failing  and  the  attendant  evils  are  so  great  that 
Dr.  Montessori  cannot  be  too  much  esteemed  for  bringing 
it  once  more  to  attention. 

The  physiological  justification  for  freedom  for  young 
children  lies  in  the  fact  that  as  brain  matter,  or  more 
generally  all  nervous  matter,  is  organized  by  action,  it 
should  be  the  object  of  the  educator,  so  to  control  the 
organization  of  the  pupil's  brain  matter  that  it  shall  be  as 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  31 

effective  as  possible.  That  is  that  in  regard  to  the  de- 
velopment of  the  sensory  and  motor  system  it  is  important, 
in  the  early  stages  at  least,  to  let  the  organism  develop 
itself  by  means  of  its  responses  to  an  environment  which 
encourages  these  responses  to  exhaust  themselves  in  an 
orderly  way,  rather  than  one  which  counteracts  them  as 
soon  as  they  are  initiated — in  which  case  we  should  lose 
control  over  the  paths  of  their  discharge  and  the  resulting 
organization  of  the  brain.  With  regard  to  mental  de- 
velopment, the  same  rule  applies,  though  here  the  envi- 
ronment must  be  selected  with  even  more  care  if  we  are 
to  get  the  best  results,  because  the  inward  impulses 
toward  mental  efficiency  are  by  no  means  as  vigorous  as 
those  toward  physical  well-being.  Therefore  it  is  of 
prime  importance  that  an  environment  should  be  provided 
which  would  contribute  to  this  result.  Such  an  environ- 
ment would  include  not  only  physical  objects  but  spirit 
ual  influences  as  well.  The  Montessori  material  has  been 
worked  out  to  meet  one  need  but  the  personality  of  the 
teacher  must  supply  the  other. 


CHAPTER  III 

AN   ADJUSTMENT 

IN  theory  the  kindergarten  and  the  Montessori  school 
are  very  closely  allied.  In  one  much  emphasis  is  laid 
on  the  self-activity  of  the  child,  in  the  other,  the 
spontaneous  activities  of  the  child  are  made  the  start- 
ing point  of  education.  Whatever  self-activity  may  mean 
philosophically,  psychologically  there  is  very  little  differ- 
ence between  it  and  the  spontaneous  tendencies  of  the 
child.  In  both,  it  is  assumed  that  there  is  something 
within  the  child  which  seeks  expression. 

A  belief  in  self-activity  necessitates  a  belief  in  liberty 
as  well,  very  much,  perhaps  exactly  the  liberty  upon 
which  Dr.  Montessori  insists. 

Also  the  kindergarten  and  the  Montessori  school  be- 
lieve in  the  value  of  motor  training  and  sense .  training, 
for  the  effect  which  such  training  will  have  on  the  men- 
tality of  the  child.  That  the  material  used  in  the  two 
schools  differs  does  not  alter  the  fact  that  in  theory  they 
both  stand  for  the  value  of  such  training. 

But  theory  and  practice  are  quite  different  matters  and 
do  not  always  agree.  Therefore  we  find  that  there  is  a 
wide  divergence  in  the  practice  of  the  two  schools.  This 
may  be  due  to  the  fact  that,  in  the  kindergarten,  much  as- 
sistance is  placed  on  Froebel's  fundamental  law  of  unity, 
which  finds  no  place  in  the  Montessori  theory.  But,  un- 
fortunately, the  real  cause  is  only  too  apparent.  The 

32 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  33 

practice  in  the  kindergarten  does  not  coincide  with  the 
theory. 

Unhappily  for  the  best  interests  of  the  movement,  the 
kindergarten  was  established  by  one  man  and  has  been 
carried  on  almost  entirely  by  women.  It  has  lacked  the 
calm,  impersonal  criticism  of  the  masculine  mind,  and  in 
too  many  cases  loyalty  and  enthusiasm  for  the  cause  has 
been  interpreted  as  loyalty  to  the  master.  The  spirit  of 
Froebel  has  too  often  been  lost  sight  of  in  adherence  to 
his  practice.  Even  the  theory  has  been  defended  against 
any  modification  by  modern  thought,  just  as  if  all  truth 
was  enunciated  by  this  one  man  and  that  one  was  fore- 
sworn if  she  questioned  it.  For  example,  we  have  talked 
a  great  deal  about  self-activity  in  the  kindergarten.  We 
have  written  many  philosophical  articles  on  it.  We  have 
lectured  about  it.  In  short  we  have  done  everything  but 
allow  the  children  to  practice  it.  They  may  be  self-active 
but  their  self-activity  must  run  along  lines  prescribed  by 
us.  At  a  certain  hour  every  day  they  must  be  self-active 
along  the  line  of  the  gifts,  at  another  hour  their  self-activ- 
ity must  show  itself  in  games,  at  another  time  in  conver- 
sation or  music.  Woe  betide  the  self-activity  which  wishes 
to  continue  to  build  when  the  teacher  wishes  the  child  to 
play. 

In  short,  in  practice  we  turn  self-activity  on  and  off  by 
the  clock.  The  child  works  at  one  thing  until  the  clock 
says  it  is  time  to  work  at  something  else.  We  assume 
that  the  flow  of  self-activity  can  be  turned  off  or  on  like 
a  spigot.  If  the  flow  becomes  too  great  and  the  child 
wishes  to  do  something  beyond  what  is  prescribed  for  that 
period,  quickly  we  turn  off  the  self-activity  and  tell  him 


34  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

to  fold  his  hands  or  stand  on  the  circle  or  sit  up  straight. 
When  self-activity  comes  in  conflict  with  the  teacher,  it  is 
not  the  teacher  who  backs  down. 

Self-activity  needs  liberty  to  work  itself  out.  Theo- 
retically the  kindergarten  has  stood  for  very  much  the 
same  kind  of  liberty  which  Dr.  Montessori  advocates,  lib- 
erty which  is  based  on  a  respect  for  the  personality  of  the 
child.  This  is  not  an  easy  achievement  for  we  are  so  ac- 
customed to  the  belief  that  age  carries  wisdom  that  we 
are  confident  that  we  know  better  what  is  good  for  the 
child  than  he  knows  himself.  There  is  no  more  difficult 
task  or  one  calling  for  more  self-control  than  that  of 
standing  back  and  allowing  children  to  educate  them- 
selves. Yet  we  all  know  from  our  own  experience  that 
we  know  nothing  except  what  we  have  taught  ourselves. 
And  we  taught  ourselves  simply  because  we  were  inter- 
ested to  know  this  especial  thing.  The  fact  that  we  have 
taken  courses,  filled  note-books  and  passed  examinations 
does  not  mean  that  we  know  anything  of  the  subject.  The 
result  to  me  of  five  years  spent  in  studying  higher  mathe- 
matics was  so  meager  that,  although  all  examinations 
were  passed  and  term  marks  high,  I  could  hardly  make 
change.  It  was  not  until  I  felt  the  need  of  such  knowl- 
edge in  house-keeping  affairs  that  I  taught  myself  an  easy 
method  of  computation. 

Latin,  too,  presents  a  parallel  case.  For  although  the 
Odes  of  Horace  were  once  at  my  tongue's  end  and  the 
essays  of  Cicero  gave  point  to  my  conversation,  it  is  im- 
possible for  me  to  tell  how  many  declensions  there  are  or 
the  number  of  the  conjugations  and  spelling  is  an  undis- 
covered country. 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  35 

These  cases  are  quite  typical  and  could  be  duplicated 
from  the  experience  of  kindergarten  children,  if  they  had 
the  ability  to  analyze  and  objectify  their  mental  processes. 
Since  this  is  impossible  they  are  at  the  mercy  of  the  domi- 
nating teacher. 

That  the  teacher  does  dominate  in  the  kindergarten 
much  more  than  she  does  in  the  Montessori  school  is  very 
apparent.  Too  often  she  leads  the  morning  circle,  or 
leads  the  march,  or  conducts  the  gift  lesson;  she  chooses 
and  arranges  the  occupation,  she  leads  the  games  and  sings 
the  good-bye  song.  The  reason  for  this  is  not  hard  to 
find.  It  is  the  result  of  all  the  years  of  the  teacher's  train- 
ing. Any  other  attitude  would  be  a  complete  reversal  of 
a  whole  life-time  of  thought.  From  the  moment  she  en- 
tered school  as  a  student  until  the  time  when  she  left  the 
training-class,  the  teacher  has  been  a  witness  to  the  domi- 
nance of  the  teacher.  During  her  period  of  practice  teach- 
ing, she  has  been  taught  the  most  tactful  ways  by  which  a 
teacher  may  dominate.  Therefore,  to  retreat  from  the 
centre  of  the  stage  and  to  assume  a  less-controlling  posi- 
tion calls  for  a  complete  change  in  her  point  of  view,  re- 
enforced  by  an  enormous  amount  of  self-control.  To 
present  an  educative  environment  and  then  to  stand  back 
and  watch  the  uses  for  self -education  which  each  child 
makes  of  that  environment  in  order  that  she  may  learn  the 
needs  and  capabilities  of  each  child,  is  no  easy  task  for 
the  teacher.  It  is  far  simpler  to  prescribe  a  set  task  and 
see  that  it  is  accomplished. 

It  is  just  here  that  the  Montessori  method  can  help  the 
kindergarten.  Based  as  it  is  on  the  spontaneous  activities 
of  the  child,  its  insistence  must  necessarily  be  upon  the 


36  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

importance  of  a  study  of  the  child.  For  a  knowledge  of 
such  activities  can  come  only  from  an  intensive  study  of 
children  under  normal  conditions.  So  first  of  all  the 
Montessori  teacher  is  a  student  of  child  psychology.  She 
surrounds  the  child  with  the  environment  which  should, 
according  to  her  best  belief,  furnish  him  with  the  proper 
means  of  self-development.  Then  she  studies  him  and 
from  such  study,  makes  what  changes  are  necessary  in  the 
environment.  But  her  main  interest  is  in  the  child. 

From  such  a  constant  study  of  the  individual  from  three 
to  six  years,  by  trained  teachers,  there  must  necessarily 
arise  valuable  additions  to  our  very  meagre  knowledge  of 
child  psychology.  At  present  the  material  available  on 
this  important  subject  is  quite  inadequate  and  what  we 
have  is  not  always  valuable.  In  fact,  it  has  been  said  that 
nothing  is  known  about  children  of  this  age.  Although 
an  exaggeration,  this  statement  approaches  too  near  the 
truth  to  be  pleasant  reading  to  kindergarten  teachers.  We 
have  had  a  splendid  opportunity  to  make  contributions  to 
the  subject  which  would  be  of  lasting  value  but  we  have 
not  done  so.  There  is  a  chance  now,  by  interpreting  self- 
activity  in  the  psychological  terms  of  spontaneous  activity, 
to  make  good  the  omission. 

Also  the  kindergarten  can  learn  from  the  Montessori 
method  the  true  meaning  of  liberty.  The  kindergarten 
has  always  stood  theoretically  for  liberty  and  freedom  of 
thought  and  movement.  But  practically  the  freedom  in 
both  has  been  limited  by  the  teacher.  For  example,  the 
children  pass  the  material  for  the  gift  or  occupation  les- 
son, but  they  receive  the  material  from  the  teacher  and 
return  it  to  her.  The  children  choose  the  game  at  the 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  3? 

game  period,  but  the  teacher  decides  whether  it  shall  be 
played  and  for  how  long.  In  fact,  the  children  usually 
keep  one  eye  on  the  teacher  to  see  if  they  are  doing  as  she 
wishes.  Such  a  thing  as  leaving  the  children  alone  to 
work  out  their  own  games,  with  only  such  interference  as 
is  necessary  to  maintain  good  conduct,  exists  in  few  kin- 
dergartens. 

To  accomplish  such  a  result — a  scientific  study  of  the 
child  and  liberty  for  self-development  for  him-r^would 
necessitate  a  complete  change  in  the  daily  procedure  of 
the  kindergarten.  The  regular  schedule  of  work  must  be 
given  up,  as  well  as  the  morning  talk  and  the  gift  lesson. 

The  daily  programme  has  been  a  very  convenient  prop 
for  the  young  or  the  unthinking  teacher.  It  has  saved 
much  time  and  energy  but,  at  the  same  time,  it  has  stulti- 
fied thought  and  has  led  to  an  attitude  of  mind  which  is 
willing  to  have  another  do  its  thinking  for  it.  Props  are 
convenient  but  are  detrimental  to  healthy  growth.  So 
the  kindergarten  teacher,  in  too  many  cases,  has  been  con- 
tent to  present  the  same  material  to  the  children,  year 
after  year.  In  such  repetition  she  has  come  to  value  the 
material  as  being  good  in  itself,  not  realizing  that  the 
value  of  any  material  rests  primarily  in  its  ability  to  meet 
the  changing  needs  of  the  child.  Not  realizing  this  the 
teacher  has  been  led  to  emphasize  the  material  and  not  the 
activity  of  the  child. 

To  follow  a  schedule  necessitates  an  adherence  to  time, 
therefore  the  clock  must  be  watched.  The  work  of  the 
various  periods  must  be  so  regulated  that  it  will  end  on 
the  minute.  Small  children  and  large  children  must  be 
held  to  the  same  time  limits.  Such  an  adherence  cannot 


38  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

be  conducive  to  a  watchful  study  of  the  child.  If  the 
teacher  has  a  certain  lesson  to  give,  and  a  certain  amount 
of  time  to  consume,  her  attention  is  divided.  She  has 
three  things  to  think  of  whereas  there  should  be  but  one. 

Also  in  following  a  schedule  uniform  demands  are 
made  on  small  beings  who  are  not  uniform.  There  is  a 
wide  divergence  among  children  as  to  their  power  of  at- 
tention, their  ability  to  sit  still,  the  duration  of  their  in- 
terest. This  is  especially  true  of  very  young  children 
since  they  have  not  attained  to  the  control  of  their  spon- 
taneous activities.  Therefore  there  is  the  more  harm 
done  if  they  are  required  to  conform  to  the  same  standard. 
The  very  material  itself  may  make  less  of  an  appeal  to 
some  children  than  to  others.  And  hence  may  become 
tiresome  to  some  while  still  maintaining  its  interest  for 
others.  Therefore  time  is  wasted  in  requiring  children 
to  work  with  material  which  means  nothing  to  them  when 
they  might  be  employed  with  something  which  would  be 
valuable  to  their  growth. 

A  schedule  of  work  tends  to  over  emphasize  the  import- 
ance of  the  material.  If  certain  periods  are  set  aside  for 
a  gift  lesson  or  an  occupation  lesson,  the  assumption  is 
that  the  gift  or  occupation  must  be  used  at  that  time  and 
nothing  must  be  allowed  to  interfere  with  such  a  presen- 
tation of  material.  This  is  laying  emphasis  in  the  wrong 
place.  Many  occasions  may  arise  where  certain  children 
may  need  very  different  presentations  on  a  certain  day 
and  only  harm  can  result  to  them  if  they  are  compelled  to 
conform  to  the  standard  set  for  the  day. 

In  suggesting  that  there  should  be  no  set  programme  in 
the  kindergarten  the  claim  is  not  made  that  there  should 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  39 

not  be  certain  activities  every  day.  For  no  day  should 
pass  without  due  observance  of  the  lunch  hour,  the  game 
period  and  rhythmic  exercises.  But  in  setting  apart  a 
definite  time  for  such  activities,  it  should  be  borne  in 
mind  that  all  the  children  be  not  required  to  take  part  in 
them.  This,  of  course,  is  a  needless  limitation,  for  what 
healthy  child  ever  refused  to  join  in  games  or  rhythms  or 
allowed  the  lunch  hour  to  pass  by.  But  if  such  an  un- 
expected event  occurred,  it  would  be  an  opportunity  for 
the  teacher.  Dr.  Montessori  would  doubtless  send  for 
the  doctor. 

The  morning  circle  was  designed  to  give  training  in 
self-expression  and  to  present  to  the  children  desirable  ex- 
periences. It  is  certainly  debatable  how  far  this  ideal  has 
been  realized.  The  usual  public  kindergarten  is  so  large 
that  it  is  difficult  to  interest  and  hold  the  attention  of  so 
many  young  minds.  In  some  kindergartens  ninety  chil- 
dren meet  morning  after  morning  in  the  circle,  in  others 
fifty.  It  would  be  difficult  for  an  adult,  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, to  preserve  his  individuality.  It  is  often  a 
very  serious  question  with  college  students  whether  they 
shall  say  the  thing  they  believe  or  what  the  professor 
wishes  them  to  say.  If  the  problem  is  present  with  adults, 
how  much  more  acute  must  it  be  with  little  children. 
They  love  their  teacher  and  naturally  they  wish  to  please 
her.  So  they  say  the  thing  which  she  wishes  them  to 
say  or  they  say  nothing  at  all.  The  advantages  from  this 
kind  of  general  conversation  are  so  slight  that  it  is  a  waste 
of  time  both  for  children  and  teacher.  Much  better  re- 
sults could  be  obtained  by  means  of  individual  conversa- 
tions or  informal  talks  with  groups  of  children.  When 


40  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

children  are  vitally  interested  in  anything,  they  do  not 
need  to  be  urged  to  talk  and  if  they  are  not  interested 
they  gain  nothing  from  forced  conversation. 

The  morning  talk  usually  consumes  thirty  minutes. 
This  in  itself  is  detrimental  to  the  children's  welfare  for 
fifteen  minutes  is  as  long  as  any  child  of  this  age  can 
concentrate  his  attention.  Especially  is  this  true  if  the 
subject  for  contemplation  is  presented  to  him.  The  chil- 
dren lose  interest  and  sit  in  their  chairs  in  quiet  apathy 
even  if  they  are  not  actively  naughty.  How  much  better 
it  would  be  to  allow  the  children  to  spend  this  time  in 
eager  work  on  something  which  could  command  all  of 
their  attention.  This  is  just  what  the  teacher  in  the  Mon- 
tessori  school  does.  She  allows  the  children  to  talk  to 
her  when  they  have  something  to  say.  And,  since  the  en- 
vironment is  so  attractive  and  so  conducive  to  conversa- 
tion, there  is  not  a  day  passes  without  an  occasion  arising 
for  helpful  conversation  with  each  child. 

The  gift  lesson  is  one  of  the  greatest  stumbling  blocks 
in  the  advancement  of  the  kindergarten.  There  has  been, 
from  the  first,  such  a  halo  of  symbolism  and  reverence 
surrounding  them;  there  has  grown  up  such  respect  and 
tradition  for  them,  that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  see  them 
simply  as  material  planned  to  aid  the  child  in  his  self- 
development.  Since  this  is  the  case,  since  it  is  almost 
impossible  to  divest  them  of  their  traditional  value,  it 
would  be  better  to  discard  them  entirely.  There  is  plenty 
of  more  valuable  material  which  may  be  used  in  their 
place. 

In  making  these  adjustments  in  accordance  with  the 
practice  in  the  Montessori  school,  the  kindergarten  would 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  41 

lose  nothing  of  its  essential  worth.  There  would  still 
remain  the  beautiful  ideal  of  the  school  as  a  miniature  so- 
city,  the  games,  the  music,  the  story  hour,  nature-study 
and  other  material  which  is  being  used  to  such  great  ad- 
vantage. What  we  should  give  up  would  be  the  exces- 
sjye  dojiiingjace--~o£--the  teacher,  the_set.  programme  ....of 

wnrJE,_J-hp   morning  ,jfcalki  And    the   gif  t-  lesson.      What  WC 

should  gain,  would  be  freedom  to  study  the  children,  in 
a  natural  environment^  an  opportunity  to  know  each  child 
better  through  personal  conversation  with  him  and  a  re- 
lease from  the  trammels  of  tradition.  In  other  words,  in 
freeing  the  children,  the  teacher  herself  would  become 
free  to  develop  her  own  powers  and  personality,  to  grow 
as  she  should  grow,  to  look  forward  and  not  back  for 
her  sanctions,  and  to  depend  upon  herself  to  work  out 
her  own  changing  problems. 


CHAPTER  IV 

GIFTS 

SOME  one  has  said  that  more  controversies  have 
been  waged  and  more  blood  has  been  shed  over 
names  than  over  principles.  I  am  always  forci- 
bly reminded  of  this  in  hearing  or  reading  any 
discussion  of  the  kindergarten  or  the  kindergarten  ma- 
terial. There  seems  to  be  an  inevitable  tendency  to  hark 
back  to  what  Froebel  planned,  or  did  or  said.  Frankly  it 
seems  hardly  worth  while  to  spend  so  much  time  on  such 
discussions.  Does  it  make  so  very  much  difference  what 
he  said  or  did?  Of  course  historically  it  is  of  very  vital 
interest  to  consider  what  contributions  each  educator  in 
turn  made  to  the  sum  of  educational  thought.  But  in  our 
daily  work,  the  worth  of  the  contribution  far  exceeds  the 
prestige  which  may  accrue  to  it  from  the  glamour  of  any 
name.  Not  who  first  presented  the  material  but  of  what 
value  is  the  material  is  the  vital  point  to  be  considered. 

The  kindergarten  gifts  have  always  rejoiced  in  the 
prestige  which  has  been  theirs  because  they  were  planned 
by  Froebel.  Curious  as  it  may  seem,  this  fact,  for  a  time, 
rendered  any  intelligent  criticism  of  this  material  almost 
impossible.  Even  to-day,  although  such  discussion  does 
take  place  and  a  very  frank  discussion  it  may  be,  yet  each 
side  is  constantly  quoting  Froebel  in  support  of  its  propo- 
sitions. There  seems  to  be  an  unexpressed  fear  that  one 
may  be  accused  of  disloyalty  to  Froebel  or  of  wandering 

42 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  43 

after  strange  gods.  This  seems  to  me  a  curious  state  of 
mind.  What  difference  does  it  make  what  Froebel 
planned  or  intended  to  do  with  the  gifts.  In  the  last 
analysis  they,  like  any  other  material,  must  be  subjected 
to  the  same  standards  of  efficiency  and  must  survive  or  be 
discarded  according  as  they  measure  up  to  these  standards. 

There  is  but  one  sacred  thing  in  the  kindergarten  and 
that  is  the  child.  There  is  only  one  question  to  be  asked 
in  respect  to  the  gifts.  Do  they  or  do  they  not  contribute 
to  the  growth  of  the  child  intellectually  and  physically? 
If  they  do  they  are  of  value,  if  they  do  not,  the  sooner  they 
are  discarded  the  better. 

The  remark  has  been  made  that  we  need  more  study  of 
the  gifts  for  a  better  understanding  of  them.  Perhaps  we 
do,  but  I  should  advocate  a  more  profound  study  of  the 
child  and  when  this  is  accomplished,  our  knowledge  of 
the  gifts,  as  well  as  of  any  other  material,  will  be  found 
to  be  surprisingly  enlarged.  If  we  look  at  the  child 
through  the  gifts  the  task  is  difficult,  but  if  we  look  at 
the  gifts  through  the  child,  the  gift  study  becomes  simple. 
What  I  mean  is  that  we  know  very  little  about  the  child, 
therefore  it  is  waste  of  time  to  keep  studying  the  gifts  with 
a  view  to  presenting  them  to  the  child.  Rather  let  us  de- 
vote all  our  energies  to  a  study  of  the  child  and  then  we 
shall  have  no  trouble  in  adapting  the  material  to  his 
needs. 

We  teachers  of  the  kindergarten  have  been  accused  of 
conservatism,  of  liking  to  adhere  to  a  tradition.  There  is 
some  truth  in  the  charge  and  nowhere  is  it  more  evident 
than  in  our  discussion  of  the  gifts.  Even  the  fact  that  we 
cling  to  such  a  peculiar  name  smacks  of  tradition.  We 


44  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

should  lose  nothing  by  giving  up  the  name  and  we  should 
gain  much.  For  any  non-essential  compromise  which 
draws  the  kindergarten  and  the  elementary  school  to- 
gether is  of  inestimable  value.  The  name  is  peculiar  and 
emphasizes  our  differences  rather  than  our  resemblances 
We  are  forced  into  an  explanation  and  the  one  who  ex- 
plains is  always  at  a  disadvantage.  Happy  the  day  when 
we  shall  have  discarded  this  relic  of  an  outgrown  past. 

In  thinking  of  the  gifts  I  have  tried  to  look  at  them 
as  things  in  themselves,  not  at  all  as  traditional  mate- 
rial which  has  been  handed  down  from  a  revered  leader. 
This  has  been  a  difficult  task  for  so  much  has  been  writ- 
ten about  them  from  Froebers  day  until  now  that,  in 
spite  of  one's  best  effort,  a  bias  in  one  direction  or  another 
is  likely  to  arise. 

In  taking  this  view  of  the  gifts  I  have  assumed  that 
children  instinctively  reach  out  for  those  things  which 
will  be  a  means  of  growth  to  them.  They  feel  a  need  for 
material  to  work  with  which  will  enable  them  to  satisfy 
their  yearning  for  growth.  For  physical  and  mental 
growth  is  a  natural  law  of  being  and  the  satisfaction  of 
this  natural  yearning  must  necessarily  be  the  first  step  in 
the  educative  process. 

Evidences  of  this  reaching  out  for  material  to  exer- 
cise one's  body  and  mind  may  be  demonstrated  at  endless 
length.  We  all  know  the  eagerness  with  which  a  teeth- 
ing child  reaches  out  for  something  hard  to  bite  on,  or 
the  persistance  with  which  a  baby  kicks  against  an  obstacle 
as  a  means  of  gaining  strength.  We  see  older  children 
walking  on  copings  or  fences  in  their  endeavor  to  gain 
balance.  So  it  seems  to  me  a  safe  generalization  to  make 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  45 

that  the  playthings  which  children  seek  instinctively  must 
necessarily  be  sought  as  a  means  of  growth.  If  we  find 
that  there  are  certain  things  which  all  children  delight  in 
using,  we  must  acknowledge  that  those  things  have  uni- 
versal validity  in  tending  to  foster  the  growth  of  the  child. 
However  these  may  be  augmented  from  our  larger  experi- 
ence, any  material  given  to  the  child  must  be  tested  by 
this  rule.  How  do  the  gifts  measure  up  to  the  stand- 
ard? 

If  we  laid  all  the  gifts  before  the  child  what  is  there 
which  would  meet  his  instinctive  need?  There  are  the 
balls  in  their  bright  colored  dresses.  Any  child  would 
reach  for  them  and  begin  a  game  of  ball.  Through  his 
instinctive  interest  in  all  things  which  move  he  would  be 
attracted  by  their  lively  rolling  and  bouncing.  With  this 
simple  interest  there  is  no  end  to  the  things  which  can 
be  done  to  strengthen  the  child  physically  and  socially 
through  playing  with  the  balls.  His  shoulder  muscles 
will  be  exercised,  his  arms  and  back  developed,  balance 
will  come  through  posing  to  throw  and  keenness  and  ac- 
curacy of  vision  will  be  an  outgrowth  of  the  catching 
and  tossing.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  as  a  means  of 
growth  the  ball  appeals  to  the  child  and  is  needed  by  him. 

Also  the  child  would  immediately  reach  out  for  the 
cubes  and  bricks  in  their  boxes.  Instinctively  he  would 
wish  to  play  with  them,  to  pile  them  in  all  sorts  of 
shapes,  to  build  houses  and  barns,  high  towers  and  churches 
and  to  lay  board  walks.  The  boxes  are  but  an  added 
joy.  What  fun  to  pile  the  blocks  in  them  and  then  turn 
them  out  again  with  a  jolly  noise!  There  is  no  end  to 
the  pleasures  and  profit  to  be  derived  from  the  building 


46  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

gifts. 

But  what  of  the  tablets,  the  sticks  and  the  points?  It 
has  been  my  experience  that  children  do  not  care  for  them  ; 
are  not  interested  in  them;  do  not  reach  for  them  as  a 
means  of  satisfying  their  need  for  self-expression.  I  have 
seen  children  wish  to  pile  the  tablets  or  try  to  make  them 
stand  on  end.  But  as  this  was  not  a  legitimate  use  of 
the  material,  the  teacher  always  interfered.  I  have  never 
seen  a  child,  who,  if  left  to  his  own  devices,  would  make 
pictures  or  patterns  of  this  material.  I  have  read  of  such 
children,  people  have  told  me  about  them,  but  I  have 
never  seen  any  of  them  attempt  such  a  use  of  the  mate- 
rial, although  my  work  has  been  among  many  different 
races  and  classes.  Even  the  students  in  my  training  class 
react  in  this  way  when  the  material  is  first  presented  to 
them.  They  begin  to  pile  the  tablets  or  try  to  stand 
the  sticks  on  end  or  make  a  pile  of  the  points.  In  some 
cases  a  suggestion  even  is  not  sufficient.  A  definite  direc- 
tion is  necessary  before  the  traditional  work  is  done. 

The  second  gift,  the  sphere,  cube  and  cylinder,  because 
of  its  solidity  and  size  is  attractive  to  an  investigating 
mind.  Although  it  has  been  called  a  difficult  gift  for  the 
teacher  to  use,  it  offers  no  obstacles  to  a  child's  ingenuity, 
especially  if  more  than  one  gift  is  used.  It  offers  a 
splendid  opportunity  to  make  things  resembling  objects 
in  daily  use  or  buildings  seen  along  the  street.  For  in 
Earle  Barnes'  Studies  in  Education,  he  found  that  chil- 
dren are  interested  in  things  first  from  their  use,  and  then 
from  their  movement.  They  never  described  any  ob- 
ject by  telling  its  color,  form,  size,  material  or  structure. 
So  it  is  very  patent  why  the  first  and  second  gifts,  and 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  47 

especially  the  building  gifts  appeal  to  the  child.  Here  is 
material  which  he  can  use  and  manipulate  according  to 
his  own  interests.  For  no  child  is  content  with  a  picture 
of  a  home  unless  there  is  a  chimney  with  smoke  coming 
from  it,  or  better  yet,  people  at  the  doors  or  windows. 
Coffee  to  them  is  something  which  mother  drinks,  or  a 
picnic  is  some  place  where  we  take  our  lunch  and  eat  it. 
So  these  gifts  appeal  because  of  their  use,  not  because 
they  have  corners  and  edges,  or  because  they  represent 
stability  or  unity.  Therefore  to  emphasize  the  color, 
form,  size,  material  or  structure  of  the  gifts,  is  to  im- 
pose on  the  children  something  which  is  not  suitable  for 
their  present  stage  of  development. 

Dr.  Barnes  continues  with  the  statement  that  we  must 
approach  the  study  of  any  object  through  its  use,  and  that 
children  cannot  give  elaborate  description  of  things  about 
them.  Hence  any  approach  to  the  gifts  through  mathe- 
matics, or  the  requirement  of  an  elaborate  description  of 
any  material  from  the  material  is  hindering  rather  than 
helping  the  growth  of  the  child. 

Judging  the  gifts  from  a  physiological  standpoint  ob- 
jection may  be  made  to  them  all. 

In  the  form  in  which  the  first  gift  is  presented  at  pres- 
ent, balls  in  woolen  coverings,  there  is  grave  danger  of 
disease  germs  lurking  in  them.  Especially  is  this  true, 
when  the  balls  are  used  from  year  to  year,  rolled  on  the 
floor  and  handled  by  many  children.  In  many  cases  they 
are  not  washed  or  cleaned  in  any  way.  How  much  bet- 
ter it  would  be  if  rubber  balls  were  used  which  would  not 
conceal  germs  so  easily  and  which  could  be  frequently 
washed. 


48  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

The  building  gifts,  valuable  as  they  are,  would  be  more 
valuable  if  used  in  a  larger  size.  Of  course  this  would 
mean  that  more  space  would  be  covered  by  each  child  and 
that  some  children  might  have  to  work  on  the  floor.  This 
would  mean  a  break-up  of  the  uniform  monotony  of 
work  at  the  tables  and  in  itself  would  be  a  good  thing. 
In  addition,  the  larger  material  would  tend  to  exercise  the 
large  muscles  of  the  children,  which  are  so  much  in  need 
of  exercise. 

Physiologically  the  tablets,  the  sticks,  and  the  points 
are  too  great  a  strain  on  the  child's  nerves.*  "The  fact 
that  'children  love  little  blocks'  and  materials  sufficiently 
small  to  throw  the  strain  upon  the  small  muscles  of  eye 
and  hand  is  no  excuse,  when  such  an  expert  as  Dr.  Judd 
gives  us  this  warning:  'One  of  the  most  noticeable  facts 
about  the  child's  diffuse  movements  is  the  fact  that  these 
movements  are  excessive,  especially  the  movement  of  the 
finer  muscles.  Somewhere  or  other  the  false  notion  has 
entered  into  our  pedagogy  that  the  child's  fine  muscles 
do  not  develop  until  later  than  the  large  muscles.  How 
can  we  believe  such  a  false  statement  when  we  see  a  young 
infant  clutching  with  its  little  fingers  and  exhibiting  in 
this  grip  one  of  its  strongest  movements?  How  can  one 
believe  this  dogma  when  he  sees  the  boys  and  girls  in  the 
first  grade  doing  all  the  work  that  they  do  with  the  fine 
muscles — literally  overdoing  this  work  in  a  very  noticea- 
ble degree?  The  fact  is,  the  finer  muscles  are  in  full 
operation  very  early  in  life.  Indeed,  they  are  the  muscles 
which  in  diffuse  movements  are  most  apt  to  be  called  into 


*The  Kindergarten,  pp.  290-292. 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  49 

action.  It  requires  a  less  powerful  excitation  from  the 
nervous  centers  to  set  the  fine  muscles  into  action.  They 
contract  at  the  slightest  stimulation.  These  are  the  mus- 
cles which  always  grow  tense  first  in  later  life  when  the 
brain  becomes  over-excited  In  emotional  excitement,  for 
example,  it  is  the  fine  muscles  of  the  face  and  hands 
that  are  first  affected.  This  limitation  in  nature's  pro- 
vision for  free  movement  is  the  first  point  at  which  the 
teacher's  rational  mode  of  developing  the  child  must  come 
in  to  supplement  nature's  provisions.  The  teacher  should 
see  to  it  that  if  diffusion  tends  to  emphasize  the  small  mus- 
cles, teaching  should  emphasize  in  due  measure  the  large 
muscles.  It  is  well  to  devise  some  other  method  of  sup- 
plementing nature  and  calling  the  large  muscles  into  play. 
Large  arm  exercises  are  the  most  available  devices  for 
attaining  this  end.'  One  of  the  best  qualities  of  the 
Montessori  material  is  that  some  of  them  are  large.  Dr. 
Burnham,  in  describing  the  ideal  kindergarten  of  the  fu- 
ture says,  'The  kindergarten  material  is  all  large;  fine 
work  is  not  done.' ' 

Psychologists  differ  as  to  the  prior  appearance  of  the 
large  or  small  muscles  but  they  seem  to  be  at  agreement 
in  pleading  for  an  exercise  of  the  large  muscles,  either  be- 
cause they  develop  first  or  because  they  do  not  develop 
first  and  so  need  to  be  exercised.  Whichever  way  lies 
the  truth,  our  duty  is  plain. 

In  every  kindergarten  there  is  found  a  gift  lesson  as 
part  of  the  daily  programme.  If  the  teacher  cannot  find 
an  appropriate  exercise  for  this  period,  she  blames  her- 
self, not  the  gifts.  If  the  children  are  not  interested  in 
the  material,  she  blames  the  children  and  not  the  gift. 


50  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

Perhaps  the  training  school  is  responsible  for  this  atti- 
tude of  mind.  Students  who  spend  three  years  in  the 
study  of  the  gifts  cannot  fail  to  be  impressed  with  their 
great  importance.  If  we  changed  the  emphasis  from  this 
material  to  child  psychology  and  hygiene  our  students 
might  have  a  different  mental  attitude. 

Year  by  year  as  I  teach  the  gifts,  I  observe  the  re-action 
of  the  students  toward  them.  At  first,  it  is  one  of  passive 
attention.  As  we  continue  and  the  significance  of  the 
material  is  laid  before  them,  they  react  to  it  as  the  sug- 
gestion is  given  them.  It  is  a  rare  mind  of  eighteen  which 
can  resist  the  suggestion  of  a  strong,  enthusiastic  person- 
ality. Hence  when  the  gifts  are  taught  with  all  the  devo- 
tion and  enthusiasm  which  is  peculiarly  a  part  of  a  kin- 
dergarten training  teacher,  there  can  be  but  one  response 
— an  equal  enthusiasm  on  the  part  of  the  students. 

More  and  more,  year  by  year,  I  am  allowing  my  stu- 
dents, when  the  material  is  presented  to  them,  to  discover 
its  possibilities  for  themselves.  Invariably,  their  response 
is  the  same  as  that  of  the  children.  They  are  attracted 
by  and  interested  in  the  first  six  gifts  and  find  great  possi- 
bilities in  them  but  need  instruction  in  the  use  of  the  other 
three.  What  their  final  attitude  toward  those  gifts  is 
depends  entirely  upon  the  attitude  which  I  assume.  This 
result  is  not  peculiar  to  any  training  school  or  any  part 
of  the  country  but  can  be  duplicated  anywhere.  Students, 
who  are  the  product  of  our  present  school  system  are  only 
too  open  to  suggestion. 

In  a  re-vitalized  kindergarten  there  would  be  no  gifts 
as  such  and  no  gift  period.  The  material,  known  as  balls, 
and  blocks  in  their  convenient  boxes,  would  be  put  on  the 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  51 

shelves  where  the  children  could  get  them  and  each  child 
could  procure  the  one  which  met  his  needs.  For  we  are 
assuming  a  large  degree  of  infallibility,  when  we  dictate 
to  the  children  which  gift  they  are  capable  of  using.  The 
smaller  children  are  doubtless  not  able  to  use  the  fifth 
and  sixth  gifts  but  there  may  be  some  who  are.  This  we 
can  not  discover  under  our  present  regime  of  presenting 
the  material  to  the  children.  Neither  can  we  tell  when 
a  child  is  ready  to  advance  from  one  gift  to  the  next.  The 
advance  is  always  regulated  by  the  supervisor  or  by  the 
average  child,  whatever  that  may  mean.  There  is  no 
average  child,  therefore,  there  can  be  no  average  ad- 
vance. Each  child  should  be  free  to  take  the  next  step 
when  he  is  prepared  for  it.  Only  in  this  way  can  we 
make  sure  that  some  children  are  not  over-stimulated, 
while  others  are  under-stimulated  to  growth.  Used  in 
this  way,  with  no  prestige  attached  to  them,  the  gifts 
cannot  fail  to  be  a  means  of  vital  growth  to  the  chil- 
dren. 


CHAPTER  V 

HAND-WORK 

WITH  our  usual  tenacity  of  holding  on  to  a 
tradition  we  still  call  the  handwork  done 
in  the  kindergarten  an  occupation,  or  occu- 
pations. This,  of  course,  differentiates  us 
immediately  from  the  rest  of  the  school,  although  much  of 
our  occupation  work  is  similar  to  the  handwork  done  in 
the  grades,  yet  the  name  calls  always  for  an  explanation. 
When  we  have  explained  that  the  work  is  practically  the 
same  as  that  used  in  the  grades,  we  have  only  the  ex- 
cuse to  offer  for  using  a  different  name  that  we  are  fol- 
lowing tradition.  It  seems  to  me  that  this  is  a  weak  argu- 
ment for  us  who  had  always  prided  ourselves  upon  being 
in  the  van  of  educational  advance.  If  that  is  our  only 
defense,  let  us  by  all  means  change  the  name.  For  it  is 
much  better  to  cement  in  every  possible  way  our  connec- 
tion with  the  rest  of  the  school  than  it  is  to  cling  to  a 
mere  tradition.  The  only  excuse  for  doing  the  latter  is 
that  we  care  more  for  a  tradition  which  means  estrange- 
ment than  for  an  immaterial  change  which  means  union. 
We  can  well  afford  to  give  up  a  few  meaningless  terms 
when  we  have  so  much  tnat  is  vital  to  offer  to  the  rest 
of  the  school  system. 

What  are  the  kindergarten  occupations?  We  all  know 
the  traditional  advance  from  a  point  to  a  solid,  which, 
with  the  gifts,  completes  a  mathematical  round.  I  doubt 

52 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  53 

very  much  if  anyone  takes  this  round  very  seriously  to-day. 
Pricking  and  pin  work  are  seldom,  if  ever,  used ;  drawing 
on  a  net  work  of  lines  has  been  superseded  by  freehand 
drawing;  in  a  few  instances  the  sewing  cards  have  been 
replaced  by  real  sewing  and  the  paper  mats  by  material  of 
less  perishable  quality ;  the  folding  according  to  a  school  is 
supplemented  by  freehand  folding;  the  clay  is  no  longer 
confined  to  geometric  forms.  All  of  these  changes  must 
be  considered  an  educational  advance.  With  our  grow- 
ing knowledge  of  the  development  of  a  child's  physical  na- 
ture, we  have  come  to  realize  the  enormity  of  giving  him 
a  needle  to  use  in  making  small  holes  in  a  paper  and  with 
our  growing  knowledge  of  his  mental  development,  we 
are  realizing  how  impossible  it  is  for  such  handwork  to 
appeal  to  a  young  child. 

The  objection  to  the  sewing  cards  is  similar  and  differ- 
ent as  well.  It  is  held  that  we  have  no  right  to  give 
a  child  something  and  call  it  sewing,  when  it  resembles 
only  in  the  faintest  degree  real  sewing.  As  the  kindergar- 
ten should  be  the  world  in  miniature,  we  have  no  sanc- 
tion for  calling  work  by  names  which  will  not  hold  valid 
in  the  world  at  large.  The  only  kind  of  real  sewing 
which  the  children  can  do  is  overcasting.  This  kind  of 
work  meets  all  the  requirements  set  by  the  physical  or 
mental  or  social  needs  of  the  child.  It  does  not  put  any 
undue  strain  on  him  physically,  it  appeals  to  him  mentally 
and  is  a  connecting  link  with  society  for  he  sees  the  same 
kind  of  thing  being  done  at  home. 

The  same  objection  can  be  made  to  the  weaving  of 
paper  mats,  with  the  additional  objection  that  the  material 
is  very  easily  torn  and  soiled.  Weaving  real  carpet  rugs 


54  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

appeals  at  once  to  a  child's  love  of  the  practical  and  to  his 
love  of  beauty.  For  carpet  rugs  may  be  just  as  beautiful 
as  paper  mats.  Both  with  the  rugs  and  the  overcasting 
of  useful  articles  we  are  showing  the  children  that  beauty 
is  not  something  to  hang  on  the  wall,  to  put  in  a  drawer 
or  to  be  used  only  on  stated  occasions.  Beauty,  to 
be  of  value,  must  be  part  of  our  daily  lives.  It  is 
beauty  of  the  commonplace,  of  the  daily  life  in  kitchen  and 
bedroom  which  we  need  so  badly.  We  need  to  beautify 
the  commonest  utensils,  to  make  them  lovely  as  well  as 
useful.  The  results  will  be  an  increased  respect  for  the 
humble  things  of  life.  Not  that  I  expect  baby  minds  to 
feel  all  this.  The  appeal  to  them  is  chiefly  that  of  use, 
but  if  we  can,  little  by  little,  associate  the  useful  and  the 
beautiful,  not  the  useless  and  the  beautiful,  an  appercep- 
tive  mass  will  develop  and  finally  we  shall  be  able  to  see 
the  results  in  our  homes,  a  much  desired  achievement. 

There  is  no  end  to  the  possibilities  of  freehand  drawing 
and  of  painting.  Some  one  has  said  that  a  small  child 
should  draw  every  day.  Whether  this  should  be  forced 
on  him  daily  is  debatable.  Certainly  he  should  be  given 
the  opportunity  to  draw  every  day,  if  he  feels  the  need  of 
expressing  himself  in  that  way.  I  remember  one  little  girl 
in  a  Montessori  school  who  did  not  wish  to  draw.  She 
finally  said  that  she  did  not  care  to  come  to  school  if  she 
had  to  draw.  When  told  that  she  need  not  do  so  unless 
she  wished,  she  came  in  the  room  in  her  usual  smiling 
fashion.  This  attitude  of  mind  continued  for  about  two 
weeks.  Then,  one  morning,  she  rushed  into  the  room, 
hastily  took  off  her  hat  and  coat  and  began  to  draw.  She 
drew  all  that  day  and  for  the  two  or  three  days  following. 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  55 

This  was  true  self-activity,  which  was  allowed  to  express 
itself  until  it  was  satisfied.  When  that  time  came  she  was 
eager  to  go  on  with  the  other  work.  Of  course  such  a 
thing  could  not  have  happened  in  a  well-regulated  kinder- 
garten. As  I  have  said  elsewhere,  self-activity  with  us 
must  conform  to  the  clock.  A  spell  of  self-activity  reach- 
ing over  three  days  would  not  be  tolerated.  But  Anna 
May  had  learned  the  joy  of  self-expression  through  draw- 
ing, a  knowledge  which  she  never  ceased  to  call  on. 

Drawing  on  the  blackboard  is  splendid  for  little  chil- 
dren as  it  gives  an  opportunity  for  the  use  of  the  big  arm 
muscles.  But  if  the  blackboard  is  too  high,  the  strain  of 
holding  up  the  arm  is  too  great.  This  strain  may  be  obvi- 
ated by  placing  a  long  wooden  stool  under  the  board. 
Thus,  not  only  relieving  the  strain,  but  also  giving  the 
children  opportunity  to  practice  balance.  Large  pieces  of 
paper  can  be  pinned  on  the  walls,  which  will  make  a 
practical  substitute.  However,  large  pieces  of  paper,  with 
crayons  or  charcoal,  may  be  kept  in  an  easily  accessible 
place.  Then  the  children  may  use  the  tables  or  the  floors 
as  a  resting  place  for  the  paper.  The  chief  point  is  to 
have  the  material  easily  accessible  and  to  allow  the  chil- 
dren to  use  it  freely. 

Freehand  folding  offers  a  splendid  opportunity  for  orig- 
inality. Every  year,  in  my  training  class,  I  am  astonished 
at  the  work  which  is  done  by  the  students.  There  is  no 
end  to  the  pieces  of  furniture,  houses  and  playthings  which 
can  be  made.  The  problem  of  fastening  them  together  has 
been  met  by  using  a  mixture  of  mucilage  and  library 
paste.  Given  large  sheets  of  Manila  paper  the  children 
go  to  work  with  eagerness  to  fashion  something  according 


56  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

to  their  own  ideas.  Perhaps,  in  the  beginning,  no  ideas 
are  forthcoming  and  a  model  will  need  to  be  furnished. 
But  it  will  not  be  long  before  the  children  prefer  to  think 
things  out  for  themselves.  It  is  most  interesting  to  watch 
the  development  of  their  initiative  and  to  see  their  growth 
in  power.  This  is  true  also  in  a  training  class.  The 
students  are  usually  much  upset  when  asked  for  the  first 
time  to  use  their  own  designs.  But,  like  the  children,  they 
soon  begin  to  rejoice  in  the  work  and  cannot  do  enough 
of  it.  Folding  according  to  a  school  or  according  to 
prescribed  directions  is  of  little  or  no  value.  The  paper 
given  to  the  children  is  small  in  size,  easily  torn,  and 
soiled.  The  objects  made  resemble,  in  a  very  slight  de- 
gree, the  name  by  which  they  are  called,  they  are  too  small 
for  use  and  they  are  not  beautiful.  So  there  is  no  object  in 
making  them.  The  reason  presented  for  giving  the  chil- 
dren such  work  is  that  it  teaches  them  precision  and  gives 
them  the  ability  to  follow  directions.  Both  of  these  abil- 
ities are  desirable  to  possess  but  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
folding  according  to  directions  calls  for  more  precision 
than  the  child  is  capable  of  using,  and  that  the  directions 
are  so  intricate  that  he  is  not  able  to  follow  them.  I 
have  seen  twenty-five  children  sit  at  a  table  for  half  an 
hour  and  all  they  did  was  to  fold  the  front  edge  of  the 
paper  on  the  back  edge.  Some  children  did  it  immediately 
and  had  to  sit  with  folded  hands  as  a  reward.  Others 
ruined  two  or  three  papers  in  vain  attempts  to  produce 
the  result  desired  and  always  failed.  These  children  were 
scolded  for  their  failure.  The  teacher  did  not  seem  to 
realize  that  the  fault  was  not  theirs.  When  all  had  made 
a  trial  the  papers  were  collected  and  that  was  the  end  of 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  57 

that  experience.  It  was  not  clear  to  me  that  the  children 
gained  anything.  It  seemed  but  a  beginning  of  the  feeling 
that  lessons  are  something  to  be  gone  through  with;  that 
the  really  vital  things  are  waiting  outside. 

I  wish  to  say  again  with  emphasis  that  I  appreciate 
fully  the  importance  of  doing  things  with  precision  and 
the  value  of  being  able  to  follow  directions.  But  there  are 
many  other  ways  to  impress  these  lessons  in  the  kinder- 
garten. In  all  of  the  freehand  handwork,  the  child  learns 
for  himself  that  unless  the  ends  meet  or  the  fold  is  true, 
the  desired  end  cannot  be  reached.  The  difference  between 
doing  this  from  self-knowledge  for  a  desired  and  imagined 
end  is  vastly  different  from  doing  it  from  dictation  with 
no  end  in  view  and  no  motive  but  a  desire  to  please  the 
teacher  or  a  habit  of  obedience.  He  can  learn  precision 
from  freehand  work  much  better  than  from  dictation. 

The  ability  to  follow  directions  is  almost  a  lost  art 
among  adults  as  well  as  among  children.  In  addition,  it 
is  the  rare  adult  who  can  give  adequate  directions.  In 
both  cases  it  seems  to  me  that  the  lack  is  due  to  an  ina- 
bility to  think  clearly.  There  are  a  few  simple  directions 
which  must  be  given  and  followed  in  every  school  for 
young  children.  There  are  about  as  many  as  young 
minds  can  assimilate.  We  would  much  better  leave 
minute  and  detailed  directions  to  a  later  age. 

Working  in  clay  or  sand  has  always  appealed  to  the 
young  imagination.  Children  have  always  delighted  in 
making  mud  pies,  and  what  is  clay  but  a  good  substitute 
for  mud.  The  trouble  has  been  that  we  have  so  little 
clay  and  so  many  children  that  each  child  can  have  but  a 
small  portion.  However,  if  the  children  did  not  all  work 


58  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

at  once,  there  would  be  enough  material  to  use  in  large 
quantities.  Therefore,  the  children  would  be  able  to 
fashion  many  things  of  large  size.  This  holds  true,  too, 
of  the  sand  table.  With  one  or  two  children  working  at 
the  table  many  schemes  could  be  worked  out  which  it  is 
impossible  to  accomplish  with  twenty  or  twenty-five  chil- 
dren. 

The  so-called  practical  occupations  are  very,  very  charm- 
ing. It  appeals  at  once  to  one's  idea  of  the  fitness  of 
things  that  children  should  make  doll  houses  and  furnish 
them,  that  they  should  make  other  toys  and  playthings 
of  wood  as  well  as  of  card-board.  They  are  certainly 
working  from  inner-compulsion,  with  a  definite  aim  in 
view;  they  are  learning  to  be  content  with  simple  things 
and  to  beautify  the  commonplace ;  they  are  learning  to  de- 
pend upon  themselves  for  any  additions  they  may  need  to 
what  has  been  given  them;  they  are  learning  the  joy  of 
real  achievement. 

The  only  criticism  which  I  might  venture  to  make  is 
that  there  is  a  danger  that  the  teacher  may  dominate  this 
handwork  just  as  much  as  she  does  the  traditional  occu- 
pations. If  the  practical  handwork  is  simply  the  result 
of  dictation,  there  is  very  little  advantage  gained  over  that 
now  commonly  used.  Of  course,  there  is  the  added  ad- 
vantage of  interest  which  is  enormous.  But  to  be  fully 
educative  there  should  be  interest  plus  freedom  in  design 
and  action.  Models  might  be  placed  in  the  room,  as,  for 
example,  a  fully  equipped  doll's  house,  and  the  children 
given  liberty  to  copy  it.  No  help  should  be  given  by  the 
teacher  unless  it  be  asked  and  then  only  by  suggestion. 

It  has  been  proved  over  and  over  again  that  we  learn 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  59 

nothing  unless  we  are  interested  in  it.  It  matters  not  that 
we  spend  days,  weeks  and  months  in  a  class  room,  or  that 
we  fill  pages  of  a  note-book.  We  have  not  learned  it  un- 
less it  has  become  a  part  of  ourselves  and  can  be  used. 
So  with  small  children,  they  learn  only  when  they  are 
interested.  At  the  kindergarten  age,  they  are  interested 
in  the  use  of  things.  Therefore,  they  will  learn  lessons  of 
precision,  of  perseverance,  of  neatness  from  the  practical 
handwork  which  could  not  be  learned  from  the  uninter- 
esting traditional  material. 

Children  of  this  age  are  not  interested  in  beauty  as 
such.  But  we  can  provide  beautiful  things  for  them  to 
work  with  and  thus  make  an  unconscious  appeal  which 
time  and  repetition  will  strengthen.  But  direct  training 
in  beauty  of  form  or  color  should  be  left  to  a  later  stage 
in  the  child's  development. 

The  criticism  of  the  practical  handwork  has  been  that 
it  is  too  materialistic  and  that  it  does  not  proceed  in  or- 
derly sequence. 

There  is  much  truth  in  the  stricture  that  no  orderly 
progression  has  been  worked  out  for  this  handwork.  There 
has  not  yet  been  made  that  nice  adjustment  from  the 
simple  to  the  complex  which  prevails  in  the  Froebelian 
occupations.  But  if  we  discard  the  setting  of  prescribed 
tasks  this  matter  will  adjust  itself.  Each  child  will  then 
pick  out  the  material  which  is  suited  to  his  needs.  We 
need  have  no  fear  that  we  are  demanding  too  much  from 
him  or  that  the  material  is  not  difficult  enough  to  pro- 
duce growth.  Children  delight  in  surmounting  difficulties 
and  are  better  judges  than  we  of  what  will  give  them 
this  opportunity.  We  shall  get  better  results  when  we 


60  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

provide  the  material  and  allow  the  children  to  make  their 
own  choice. 

There  is  no  end  to  the  handwork  which  may  be  used  in 
the  kindergarten.  The  difficulty  is  to  find  just  what 
is  suitable.  This  can  be  done  only  by  experiment.  For- 
tunately, there  is  a  large  body  of  material  which  has  been 
tested  and  found  to  appeal  to  the  interest  of  children,  as 
well  as  to  have  real  educative  value.  This  is  the  Mon- 
tessori  material.  The  simplicity  of  the  material,  the  op- 
portunity it  gives  for  endless  repetition  make  a  strong 
appeal  to  the  younger  children. 

Dr.  Hall  suggests  that  "among  other  things  it  would  be 
quite  germane  to  an  ideal  kindergarten  to  have  a  stone 
and  woodyard,  where  many  stones  of  as  diverse  kinds, 
shapes,  color,  qualities,  etc.,  as  possible  should  be  accumu- 
lated, including  a  load  of  smooth,  variegated  pebbles  from 
the  beach;  and  from  these  up  to  sizes  that  the  children 
would  have  to  exert  themselves  to  lift  or  even  roll.  There 
should  be  a  level  space  for  them  to  pile  them  into  tiny 
cairns,  barrows,  cromlecks,  make  alignments,  playhouses, 
etc.  There  should  be  also  a  generous  collection  of  small 
boards,  large  wooden  blocks,  slats,  etc.,  etc.,  not  entirely 
without  slivers.  Here  children  might  indulge  their  prim- 
itive instincts  to  construct,  with  material  heavy  enough 
to  exercise  the  larger  muscles.  They  could  assort  them 
by  size,  color,  shape,  smoothness  of  feel,  etc.  It  would  be 
well  also  if  there  were  characteristic  bits  of  ore  and  min- 
erals, marble,  glass  without  too  sharp  edges;  and  even 
coal,  and  a  few  of  the  more  common  or  easily  obtainable 
fossils  and  arrowheads.  To  realize  what  stones  mean  to 
the  material  child,  read  Acker.  That  tells  the  story.  He 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  61 

shows,  too,  what  strings,  points,  edges,  clubs,  etc.,  have 
meant  for  the  race  and  mean  to-day  for  children.  The 
children  might  occasionally  be  shown  the  many  clever 
things  that  can  be  done,  and  not  too  much  protected  so 
that  there  would  never  be  any  bruises  or  petty  accidents. 
Thus  the  propensity  to  build,  classify,  exercise  the  aesthetic 
taste,  work,  develop  the  strong  muscles,  learn  something 
about  minerals,  mines,  rocks,  mountains  could  be  guided 
and  developed  by  talks  and  model  exercises.  Some  stones 
could  be  named  and  tales  of  the  Mythic  and  Stone  Age, 
and  some  rudiments  of  what  will  later  become  interest 
in  lithology  could  be  developed  by  lessons  from  the  rocks. 
Such  a  stone  and  woody ard  in  a  school  could  teach  many 
invaluable  lessons  and  stimulate  tendencies.  For  the  older 
children,  there  could  be  joined  frame-work,  boards,  and 
other  material  to  be  put  together  without  nails  into  houses 
large  enough  for  the  children  to  get  into  and  enjoy,  and 
then  taken  down  and  reconstructed.  There  should,  of 
course,  also  be  bricks  for  building  as  well  as  stones. 

"Snow  in  its  season  is  as  valuable  for  constructive  play 
as  sand  or  clay,  is  more  plastic,  and  young  children  should 
be  insured  a  good  deal  of  experience  with  molding  snow- 
balls and  various  other  figures,  making  snow  men,  forts, 
imprinting  their  own  figure  in  it,  making  pictures  and  let- 
ters, mapping  out  cart  wheels,  and  other  patterns  for 
games,  digging  and  tunneling  in  drifts,  rolling  and  leap- 
ing in  it,  etc.  Snow  has  pedagogic  possibilities  that  are 
not  yet  realized.  The  kind  of  play  it  prompts  is  under 
the  very  best  conditions,  for  the  ground  is  padded  and 
cushioned  and  so  incites  to  new  motor  activities.  The 
analysis  of  snow  air  shows  it  to  be  the  purest  from  germs, 


62  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

most  prophylactic  and  stimulating  while  the  cold  adds  its 
wondrous  tonic,  sending  the  blood  inward  to  stimulate  all 
the  vital  organs,  and  then  by  reaction  bringing  it  to  the 
surface  again  in  the  most  healthful  way.  Then  a  snow 
field  is  on  the  whole  a  better  environment  for  play,  and 
a  surer  tonic  kind  of  play  than  even  a  grassy  lawn.  Like 
those  with  wood  and  stone,  snow  plays  are  a  rich,  rank 
soil  as  yet  but  little  cultivated  by  the  programmists." 

Although  picture  books  may  not  properly  be  classed  as 
handwork,  yet  there  is  every  reason  why  they  should  form 
a  part  of  the  school  equipment.  Especialy  in  our  poor 
kindergartens,  where  the  children  see  few  if  any  pictures, 
are  they  needed.  But  in  these  days  of  bridge  whist  and 
daily  matinees,  there  are  few  children  who  would  not  wel- 
come this  addition  to  their  environment. 

From  year  to  year,  as  we  study  the  children  more  close- 
ly, we  should  be  able  to  evolve  better  handwork,  more  and 
more  suitable  to  the  children's  needs.  And  when  this 
material  is  put  within  reach  of  the  children,  and  each  child 
is  allowed  freedom  to  choose  what  appeals  to  his  need  at 
the  time,  we  shall  have  indeed  a  revitalized  kindergarten. 


CHAPTER  VI 

MUSIC 

NO  one  can  estimate  the  harm  which  is  being 
done  every  day  in  our  kindergartens  by  the 
careless,  slipshod  playing  of  vulgar  music. 
The  constant  bang,  bang,  bang;  thump, 
thump,  thump,  for  half  the  morning,  cannot  fail  to  cheap- 
en and  vulgarize  the  small  individuals  subjected  to  it.  Of 
course,  in  many  kindergartens  the  best  music  is  played  and 
played  well.  But  it  has  been  my  experience,  both  in  ob- 
serving the  work  and  in  talking  with  teachers  from  all 
parts  of  the  country,  that  few  teachers  realize  the  respon- 
sibility which  devolves  upon  them  in  regard  to  the  music 
which  is  played  and  the  manner  in  which  it  is  inter- 
preted. Music  is  thought  of  in  terms  of  the  action  which 
accompanies  it,  not  as  a  thing  in  itself.  In  a  sense  this 
is  a  right  view  point,  for  any  impression,  such  as  music, 
can  be  estimated  only  by  the  expression  produced.  But 
it  is  not  of  this  expression  the  teacher  is  heedful.  She  lim- 
its her  attention  to  the  physical  manifestation  produced  by 
the  music,  such  as  skipping  and  dancing.  She  fails  to 
realize  that  the  nervousness  or  irritability  shown  at  a 
handwork  lesson,  the  desire  to  push  and  crowd  at  the 
games,  may  be  the  direct  result  either  of  the  quality  or 
the  quantity  of  the  music  played.  Our  failure  to  grasp 
the  significance  of  this  is  leading  us  daily  to  miss  an  oppor- 
tunity to  make  use  of  one  of  the  most  potent  educative 
factors  at  hand. 

63 


64  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

/ 

From  the  time  of  primitive  man  until  to-day  music  has 
been  a  vital  method  of  self-expression.  When  primitive 
man  had  conquered  his  environment  to  such  a  degree  that 
he  had  some  leisure  time,  he  passed  that  time  in  acting  over 
again  the  activities  which  had  occupied  him  during  the 
day.  From  the  living  out  in  play  the  work  which  took 
so  much  of  his  time  came  the  dance.  The  whole  world 
of  folk  dances  is  filled  with  such  dances  viz.,  the  shoe- 
maker's dance,  the  harvest  dance,  washday  dance.  But 
bodily  movement  alone  was  not  sufficient  to  satisfy  his 
craving  for  self-expression.  He  began  to  make  sounds  to 
accompany  his  movements.  Naturally  these  sounds  re- 
sembled the  sounds  which  he  heard  in  nature — the  swish- 
ing of  the  waves,  the  sighing  of  the  wind  or  the  tossing 
of  the  branches  of  the  trees.  In  other  words  music  was 
distinctively  objective.  It  represented  objects  in  nature  ex- 
ternal to  the  musician.  By  degrees,  as  the  race  advanced  in 
civilization,  music  became  more  and  more  subjective  until 
to-day  it  is  almost  entirely  so.  So-called  programme 
music  which  appears  at  rare  intervals  on  a  concert  pro- 
gramme, is  the  last  vestige  of  objective  music.  To-day 
music  expresses  emotion.  Hence  it  is  one  of  the  chief 
means  for  self-expression  not  only  for  the  trained  musician 
but  also  for  the  man  in  the  street.  The  church  service 
would  fail  of  much  of  its  power  if  divested  of  congrega- 
rional  singing. 

This  fact,  that  music  is  the  expression  of  the  emotional 
life  will,  I  believe,  be  acknowledged  by  all.  But  the  cor- 
ollary which  follows  from  it  is  not  usually  deduced.  If 
music  is  an  expression  of  emotion  then  we  should  be  very 
careful  what  emotion  is  expressed.  For  emotions  are 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  65 

as  contagious  as  the  measles.  Given  one  individual  in  an 
excessive  emotional  state  and  the  result  will  undoubtedly 
be  that  all  who  come  in  contact  with  him  will  catch 
a  part  of  his  emotion.  We  see  this  in  the  power  of  the 
reformer,  in  the  effect  which  an  orator  has  on  his  audience. 
We  all  know  the  joyous  effect  of  meeting  a  genuinely  hap- 
py person  or  the  deadening  effect  of  the  chronically  mor- 
bid. Emotions  react  not  only  on  the  person  experiencing 
the  emotion  but  also  on  the  individuals  who  come  in  con- 
tact with  him.  Every  day  we  experience  this  although 
quite  unconsciously.  A  large  part  of  our  emotional  life 
is  dependent  on  the  emotional  state  of  those  with  whom  we 
come  in  contact.  But  that  emotion  expressed  in  music  has 
the  same  effect  is  not  so  generally  acknowledged  although 
we  all  act  upon  the  knowledge.  We  have  the  band  play 
to  quiet  a  disorder,  or  the  military  leader  uses  it  as  an 
inspiration  to  make  the  men  forget  the  fatigue  of  the 
march  or  to  inspire  them  to  the  battle.  Evangelists  know 
it  and  use  hymns  as  one  of  the  most  potent  factors  in 
arousing  congregations.  The  Salvation  Army  knows  it 
and  makes  the  appeal  which  will  reach  the  class  of  people 
it  is  working  for.  We  all  know  the  difference  in  our 
feelings  after  we  have  listened  to  the  Messiah  or  sat 
through  the  performance  of  a  musical  comedy. 

All  music  is  not  good  to  listen  to.  It  is  not  only  rag- 
time and  the  cheap  songs  of  the  Vaudeville  stage  which  are 
pernicious  in  their  influence.  There  are  works  of  art 
which  are  just  as  dangerous  in  their  influence  as  any 
piece  of  literature  which  we  keep  so  carefully  from  our 
young  people.  The  Venusberg  music  from  Tannhauser 
has  been  called  the  wickedest  music  which  was  ever  writ- 


66  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

ten.  The  much  played  Barcarolle  from  the  Tales  of  Hoff- 
man is  sensuous  in  the  extreme.  Such  compositions  should 
not  be  played  to  young  people,  for  music  can  debase  as 
well  as  uplift. 

If  music,  then,  is  an  expression  of  an  emotional  state 
and  if  any  such  expression  must  necessarily  have  a  marked 
effect,  it  follows  that  we  must  be  very  critical  of  the  mu- 
sic which  we  present  to  kindergarten  children.  For  chil- 
dren of  their  age  are  very  susceptible  to  suggestion.  Their 
emotional  life  is  much  higher  developed  than  their  intel- 
lectual, hence  any  appeal  to  the  emotions  makes  a  much 
deeper  impression  than  one  to  the  intellect. 

None  but  the  very  best  music,  best  in  composition,  best 
in  execution  and  best  in  emotional  reaction  should  ever 
be  tolerated  for  one  instant.  To  accomplish  this  result 
we  must,  of  course,  go  back  to  the  training  school.  The 
music  in  a  kindergarten  can  never  reach  any  grade  higher 
than  the  standard  set  by  the  teacher.  Until  the  teacher 
knows  and  insists  on  the  right  kind  of  music,  we  must 
wait.  The  teacher  is  the  product  of  her  training  school, 
so  any  reform  must  start  there. 

Our  courses  in  music  must  be  strengthened.  Three 
years  of  consecutive  work  at  some  instrument,  preferably 
the  violin,  together  with  regular  classes  in  the  appreciation 
of  music,  would  make  for  a  revolution  in  our  kindergar- 
tens. If  the  objection  is  mfcde  that  there  is  not  time  for 
such  an  enlargement,  we  might  reply  that  enough  time 
might  very  profitably  be  cut  off  from  the  periods  as- 
signed to  the  study  of  the  gifts.  However,  such  an  objec- 
tion is  merely  begging  the  question.  If  we  realize  the 
importance  of  the  task  we  will  find  time  to  accomplish  '^ 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  67 

If  a  teacher  has  been  so  unfortunate  that  she  has  missed 
adequate  training  in  music,  a  phonograph  would  be  a  very 
adequate  substitute.  In  fact,  no  matter  how  well  the 
teacher  may  play,  the  phonograph  is  an  indispensable  ad- 
junct to  her  own  playing.  It  gives  a  larger  repertoire  of  in- 
struments, as  well  as  a  larger  range  of  interpretation. 
Instead  of  the  limitations  of  one  performer  on  one  instru- 
ment the  opportunity  is  given  of  many  different  interpre- 
tations on  many  different  instruments.  Of  course,  there 
is  the  same  danger  here  that  cheap  or  vulgar  music  may 
be  used.  Not  all  phonograph  records  are  good — many  of 
them  are  just  as  demoralizing  as  any  piano  compositions. 
The  trained  taste  of  the  teacher  must  safe-guard  its  use 
as  it  would  that  of  any  other  music. 

The  teacher  cannot  lead  her  children  to  love  the  best 
in  music  unless  she  cares  for  it  herself.  Therefore,  in 
addition  to  the  training  she  has  received  in  her  normal 
course,  she  should  lose  no  opportunity  of  hearing  good 
music.  If  she  is  fortunate  enough  to  have  a  phonograph  in 
the  school,  she  should  play  it  for  her  own  benefit  as  much 
as  for  the  benefit  of  the  children. 

Music  in  the  kindergarten  then  divides  itself  into  two 
parts — one,  the  music  which  is  played  to  the  children; 
the  other,  the  music  which  the  children  themselves  pro- 
duce. We  have  yet  to  discuss  just  what  music  the  chil- 
dren shall  sing,  and  when  and  how. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  kindergarten  movement  there 
was  a  great  dearth  of  songs  appropriate  for  use  with  chil- 
dren. Great  credit  is  due  Miss  Patty  Hill  and  her  sister, 
Miss  Poulson,  Miss  Eleanor  Smith  and  the  other  pioneers 
of  the  movement  for  the  splendid  work  which  they  did  in 


68  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

providing  songs  about  things  of  interest  to  children.  But 
we  know  more  of  child  nature  now  than  was  known  then, 
and  we  know  that  children  of  from  four  to  six  years  of 
age  are  not  capable  of  the  sustained  attention  which  is  re- 
quired to  learn  songs  of  two  or  three  stanzas.  So  the 
songs  of  more  than  one  stanza  must  go.  For  it  is  perfectly 
patent  to  any  thoughtful  observer  that  children  in  the 
kindergartens  do  not  sing.  I  began  to  notice  this  while 
I  was  still  in  the  training  school.  Never  have  I  seen  or 
heard  a  group  of  kindergarten  children  who  could  begin 
and  carry  to  a  conclusion  a  song  of  even  two  stanzas. 
Aided  by  the  teacher,  the  whole  group  begins  to  sing. 
They  may  finish  the  first  stanza  and  begin  the  second 
bolstered  by  the  teacher's  voice,  but  only  a  few  are  ever 
able  to  finish  the  song.  It  would  be  a  brave  and  rare 
teacher  who  would  venture  to  take  away  the  support  of 
both  teacher  and  piano. 

This  situation  typifies  the  fatuity  of  so  much  of  our 
work  in  the  kindergarten.  We  all  know  that  the  chil- 
dren do  not  sing  freely  and  spontaneously;  we  know  that 
many  of  them  come  to  us  as  monotones  and  leave  us  as 
monotones;  we  know  that  it  is  a  rare  occurrence  to  find 
a  child  who  can  sing  alone  or  who  has  any  desire  to  do 
so.  Yet  singing  should  be  just  as  much  a  commonplace 
of  expression  as  talking,  especially  with  little  children. 

"At  the  age  when  the  average  child  enters  the  kinder- 
garten or  first  grade,  he  is  in  the  same  physical,  mental, 
and  creative  state,  in  relation  to  his  voice,  as  the  artist, 
who,  the  studio  training  completed,  stands  upon  the 
threshold  of  a  career.  Each  has  arrived  at  the  place  where 
he  knows  that  his  voice  belongs  to  himself,  and  that  he 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  69 

can  do  anything  he  desires  with  it.  The  child  has  already 
tested  numberless  times  its  persuasive,  imitative  and  de- 
ceptive powers.  Instinctively,  and  quite  unconsciously, 
he  has  come  to  know  his  voice  as  the  medium  through 
which  he  touches  the  world  about  him,  and  its  myriad 
colors  express  his  varying  emotional  states  with  mirror- 
like  fidelity,  revealing  anger,  joy,  hope,  desire,  pity,  love. 
When  certain  emotional  states  are  deepest,  he  sings  with 
absolute  sincerity  of  emotional  expression. 

"The  artist,  through  training,  has  come  back  to  nature; 
and  at  the  moment  of  the  debut,  whatever  else  may  be 
lacking,  one  may  count  with  surety  upon  this  one  asset — 
the  ability  to  reveal  through  the  singing  voice,  the  dom- 
inant feeling  of  the  thing  sung.  This  art  is  called  by 
various  names:  tone  color,  style,  individuality,  or  (that 
much-abused  term)  temperament.  Again,  the  child  has, 
and  the  artist  nxust  have,  either  through  natural  gift  or 
much  study,  power  to  surrender  body,  mind,  and  spirit  to 
his  individual  feeling  for  the  tone  color,  a  true  instinct 
for  sincerity  of  expression.  Rare  indeed  is  the  child  who 
can  be  induced  to  express  the  artificial,  or  any  mood, 
foreign  to  his  personal  feeling  of  the  moment.  Here 
again  we  have  style,  temperament,  individuality. 

"The  child  has  quite  naturally  what  few  artists  ever 
acquire,  the  gift  of  gifts,  the  art  of  arts,  viz.,  the  ability 
to  play  with  the  voice  and  an  irresistible  desire  to  exer- 
cise this  power.  This  is  the  period  when  the  school  steps 
in,  claiming  the  child  for  a  part  of  each  day,  imposing  upon 
him  its  more  or  less  formal  routine  and  methods. 

"The  two  influences  which  are  of  supreme  moment  in 
the  child's  life  at  this  period  are  the  influence  of  formal 


70  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

expression  through  speech,  and  that  of  the  formal  educa- 
tive process. 

"Recognizing  this,  the  problem  of  the  kindergarten 
and  first  grade  becomes  apparent.  The  child  should  be 
kept,  as  far  as  possible,  within  the  influences  which  foster 
the  feelings,  and  suggest  their  spontaneous  expression 
through  activity. 

"In  the  last  analysis,  the  end  sought  in  teaching  every 
subject  is  the  development  of  the  individuality  of  the 
child.  Singing  serves  this  end  better  than  any  other 
subject  in  the  program  of  the  kindergarten  or  first  grade, 
for  in  the  song  life  of  the  child,  his  individuality  is 
most  fully  revealed.  Through  the  song  he  expresses  imi- 
tative, interpretative,  and  creative  power.  Here  then  is 
our  claim  for  music  as  a  basic  subject,  the  basic  subject 
even,  of  the  primary  grade.  Properly  taught,  it  leads 
out  to  the  teaching  of  all  the  other  subjects.  Reading 
is  so  closely  allied  to  it  that  the  correlation  is  arousing 
the  interest  of  the  more  conservative  educators,  while 
advanced  thinkers  accept  with  high  faith  the  very  ob- 
vious conclusions  of  this  correlation. 

"Consider  briefly  the  significance  of  this  correlation. 
The  first  difficulty  to  be  overcome  in  learning  to  read 
is  the  purely  physical  one  of  gaining  command  of  the 
voice.  The  child  has  at  first  no  correlated  ear  training, 
no  power  to  hear  the  sound  of  his  own  voice  and  to  relate 
it  to  other  sounds.  Rhythm  and  melody  are  vital  agents 
in  this  ear  training.  The  voice  attuned  through  song 
will  come  more  freely,  naturally,  and  musically  when 
used  in  speech. 

"Relating  the   reading  lesson   to   the  song  is  sure  to 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  71 

eliminate  such  inanities  as  are  commonly  found  in  the 
reading  texts  supplied  to  children ;  and  this  is  a  matter  of 
vital  importance.  Granted  our  art  standard  as  the  true 
test  of  efficiency  in  our  teaching,  we  must  give  the  child 
some  quickening  impulse  in  the  material  provided,  some- 
thing that  will  kindle  the  imagination,  arouse  the  feelings, 
and  provoke  spontaneous  expression. 

"We  must  set  for  ourselves  a  very  high  aim,  that  of 
bringing  the  child  into  consciousness  of  his  voice  and  of 
speech  as  a  great  mystery  which  is  to  be  treated  with 
respect  and  used  advisedly  that  it  may  arouse  pleasure  and 
appreciation  in  the  hearer.  There  should  be  no  such  use 
of  the  voice  except  as  it  is  called  into  play  by  imagination 
and  feeling,  to  arouse,  which  there  must  be  a  text  which 
will  stimulate  the  imagination  and  stir  the  emotions.  'I 
see  the  pretty  maple  leaf  may  be  rendered  with  every 
shade  of  mimicry  of  the  teacher's  infections,  but  to  the 
child  it  will  be  entirely  lacking  in  either  sincerity  or 
interest.  No  sane  and  normal  child  will  find  anything 
but  boredom  in  'Ned  can  run,'  'I  see  a  dog,'  'I  can  fly' 
— typical  exercises  from  a  first  grade  primer. 

" Learning  to  read  consists  not  so  much  in  acquiring  a 
vocabularly  (though  that  will  come  inevitably),  as  in 
giving  pleasure  by  the  frank  dramatic  expression  of  sin- 
cere feeling  aroused  in  the  reader  by  the  picture  he  con- 
ceives, and  which  he  is  trying  to  convey  to  his  hearer. 
Reading  is,  or  should  be,  a  work  of  art,  a  true  dramatic 
expression,  not  a  mere  word  pronouncing  performance. 
From  this  point  of  view,  it  becomes  intensive  rather  than 
extensive;  and  facility,  which  'grows  by  what  it  feeds 
on,'  becomes  an  unconscious  process  which  may  be  left 


72  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

to  time  if  the  spirit  of  the  child  be  once  fully  aroused. 
How  many  of  us  credit  our  ability  to  read  to  the  instruc- 
tion received  at  school?  Very  few,  if  we  are  frank  with 
ourselves,  will  own  any  relation  between  the  set  para- 
graphs of  the  reading  lesson  and  the  world-wide  wonder- 
land of  books  into  which  fancy  or  curiosity  led  us,  or 
into  which  we  simply  drifted  unguided,  unstimulated, 
save  by  the  inner  desire  to  know. 

"No.  It  is  the  province  of  the  school  to  keep  the 
wonder  alive  in  the  child.  To  bring  him  into  relation 
with  such  books  as  will  feed  his  fancy,  stimulate  his 
curiosity,  arouse  his  desire  to  go  further,  and  to  give 
pleasure  by  sharing — that  is,  by  reading  aloud,  thus  re- 
creating the  image  for  another.  This  will  all  lead,  quite 
unconsciously,  to  a  cultured  use  of  speech.  Beauty  of 
enunciation  will  come  spontaneously;  just  as  he  chooses 
with  delicacy  and  precision  the  placing  of  flowers  in  a 
vase  which  he  is  to  bestow  on  one  he  loves,  so  will  the 
child  with  the  same  rare  taste,  choose  his  intonations, 
dwelling  with  fine  discrimination  upon  the  tones  which 
are  to  convey  his  vocal  pictures.  In  this  his  sincerity  is 
unerring. 

"Now,  the  training  in  phonics,  which  has  this  end  in 
view,  should  all  be  from  the  tonal  side.  The  attitude 
of  the  teacher  toward  phonics  should  be  that  of  the  art 
student  toward  diction;  and  here  again  it  is  intensive 
rather  than  extensive:  not  how  many  high  notes  one  can 
sing,  nor  how  many  words  one  can  pronounce;  rather 
how  much  beauty  in  a  high  note,  how  much  charm  in 
a  single  word  that  may  linger  on  the  tongue,  giving  rare 
pleasure  to  the  one  who  utters  it,  as  well  as  conveying 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  73 

a  picture  to  the  hearer.  The  miracle  of  speech  should  be 
kept  a  miracle. 

"To  serve  this  end,  the  correlation  of  music  with  read- 
ing is  the  strongest  agent,  for  in  the  rhythm  of  the  song, 
the  voice  is  sustained  without  conscious  effort;  through 
the  melody  of  the  song  the  picture  is  fixed  indelibly  in 
the  imagination  and  memory,  and  in  the  joyous  repeti- 
tion of  a  favorite  song  comes  all  the  drill  necessary  to 
fix  the  vocabulary  without  any  of  the  drudgery  so  hateful 
to  childhood. 

"Something  there  is  in  rhythm  and  melody  which  goes 
with  play.  The  lilt  of  the  song  gets  into  the  joints  of  the 
child,  as  the  spirit  of  the  song  insinuates  itself  into  his 
mind,  destroying  the  self  consciousness  which  appears 
with  any  effort  to  make  a  formal  game.  The  song  is 
inevitably  accompanied  by  dramatic  action. 

"Here  is  the  teacher's  opportunity  for  phonic  drill,  for 
children  will  accept  the  sharply  defined  accents  and 
phrases  of  the  song.  Here  is  breath  control  gained  quite 
unconsciously  by  the  child.  Here  is  precision  of  utter- 
ance, and  in  the  big  imitative  sounds,  the  finest  vocal 
drill. 

"Take  the  sound  of  the  bees  for  breath  control.  Fol- 
low this  with  imitative  sounds  in  nature.  The  wind  as 
it  whistles,  or  hums,  or  sighs.  The  sound  of  it  in  the 
big  bending  pine,  or  in  the  rustling  poplar  tree.  The 
splash  of  the  waves  on  the  shore — the  swish  of  the  big 
wave.  The  hum  of  the  electric  fan.  The  play  of  voices 
in  the  echo.  The  whole  field  of  acoustics  becomes  a  real 
Aladdin's  chamber  of  fancy  to  the  child,  who,  pleased 
with  the  infinite  imitative  powrer  of  his  own  voice,  goes 


74  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

from  one  exercise  to  another,  quite  unconscious  that  he 
is  strengthening  the  voice,  gaining  breath  control,  open- 
ing and  purifying  the  nasal  passage,  destroying  incipient 
adenoids,  clarifying  the  vision  both  of  the  eye  and  of  the 
mind  by  sending  greater  blood  supply  to  the  brain,  and 
loosing  that  greatest  organ  of  all,  the  voice,  from  its 
bondage  of  tense  self-conscious  muscles. 

"The  repertoire  of  songs  for  this  field  of  work  covers 
all  the  interests  and  experience  of  normal  childhood.  It 
includes  the  bugle  (with  marching  and  military  bearing 
of  course;  the  suggestion  is  irresistible  to  childhood)  ; 
the  steam  engine;  saw  mill;  scissors  grinder;  Indian  call, 
or  warwhoop;  fiddle;  top;  bell  (both  the  large  bell  that 
swings  in  the  belfry  and  the  little  bell  that  stands  on 
the  teacher's  desk)  ;  the  sea  shell ;  and  the  pure  vibrat- 
ing sound  made  by  running  the  finger  about  the  moisten- 
ed rim  of  a  tumbler. 

"Singing,  so  taught  that  it  would  express  the  life  of 
the  child  in  song  could  be  a  basic  subject  in  the  cur- 
riculum of  the  kindergarten,  and  first  and  second  grade 
schools;  and  through  it  we  might  give  to  the  home  and 
to  the  country  something  worth  while  to  the  child  in 
personal  development  and  to  singing  as  an  art."* 

If  music  with  nature  study  is  to  be  the  basic  study  in 
the  kindergarten  we  must  understand  what  music  is. 
We  have  seen  that  it  is  a  mode  of  self-expression  for  one 
thing,  but  this  does  not  explain  what  it  is.  There  are 
many  things  which  go  to  make  up  music  but  of  them  all 
the  thing  which  concerns  us  is  rhythm.  For  music  is  an 


*The  Life  of  the  Child  in  Song  and  Speech.  Alys  E.  Bentley. 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  75 

outgrowth  of  rhythm,  not  rhythm  of  music.  Of  just  what 
rhythm  consists  it  is  easy  to  feel  and  hard  to  tell.  Glyn, 
in  his  Rhythmic  Conception  of  Music,  has  defined  it  as 
uthe  periodic  quality,  undulating  and  pulsating,  of  all 
music."  Wallaschek,  in  Primitive  Music,  says,  "Rhythm, 
taken  in  a  general  sense,  to  include  'keeping  in  time'  is 
the  essence  of  music,  in  its  simplest  form  as  well  as  in  the 
most  elaborated  fugues  of  modern  composers,"  and  again, 
"Men  do  not  come  to  music  by  way  of  tones  but  they 
come  to  tones  and  tunes  by  way  of  rhythmical  impulse." 
Glyn  says  also  that  "Time  outlines  precede  pitch  out- 
lines because  they  are  easier  to  grasp." 

From  these  quotations  it  may  be  seen  that  rhythm  is 
time  and  yet  more  than  time  and  that  it  is  the  precursor 
of  music  taken  in  the  sense  we  use  it.  Such  was  the  case 
with  primitive  man  who  began  with  rhythmic  gestures 
and  bodily  movements,  to  act  over  again  his  usual  oc- 
cupations. From  these  movements  came  music  and  to-day 
the  same  truth  holds  that  a  sense  of  rhythm  comes  from 
bodily  movement  and  a  sense  of  music  from  rhythm. 

Children  are  instinctively  rhythmic.  From  birth  they 
feel  the  rhythm  of  the  breath,  the  beat  of  the  heart; 
when  they  begin  to  walk,  they  can  feel  the  rhythm  of 
their  step  or  of  the  swinging  of  their  arms.  They  hear 
the  rhythm  in  nature,  the  sound  of  the  waterfall,  the 
swish  of  the  waves  on  the  beach  or  artificial  sounds,  as 
the  thump,  thump,  thump  of  the  drum  or  the  honk,  honk, 
honk  of  the  automobile  horn.  It  is  upon  this  instinct  that 
we  must  build  and  lead  the  children  on  into  the  wonder- 
ful world  of  music. 

The    rhythmic   sense   can   best   be   developed    through 


76  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

bodily  movement  and  this  is  our  especial  opportunity  in 
the  kindergarten.  By  doing  this  we  shall  accomplish 
two  results,  we  shall  lead  the  child  from  a  crude  sense 
of  rhythmic  to  the  beginning  of  a  love  of  music  as  well 
as  develop  his  body  and  give  him  control  over  it. 

Instead  of  beginning  in  the  fall  to  sing  songs,  taking 
it  for  granted  that  all  children  can  sing,  a  better  plain 
and  one  based  on  good  psychology  would  be  to  begin  with 
some  simple  bodily  movements.  All  children  are  inter- 
ested in  animals  and  delight  in  imitating  them.  Through 
such  imitation  we  have  at  hand  a  wonderful  opportunity 
for  bodily  movement  based  on  rhythm.  Take  for  ex- 
ample the  slow  swing  of  the  bear  or  the  waddling  of  the 
duck;  the  jump  of  the  kangeroo  or  the  galloping  of 
horses;  any  of  these  appeal  to  children  and  through  them 
they  learn  a  tremendous  amount  of  bodily  control,  a  sense 
of  rhythm  and  they  have  a  good  time.  As  one  little  girl 
said  to  me,  after  such  a  lesson,  "Oh,  don't  you  just  love 
rhythms?"  To  another  child  of  three  and  a  half  years, 
the  waddling  ducks  were  so  real  that  when  she  was 
asked  if  they  looked  like  ducks,  she  replied,  "They  are 
ducks."  Children  will  play  these  little  movements  over 
and  over  again,  not  because  they  are  entranced  with  being 
a  bear  or  a  kangaroo  but  because  it  feels  good  to  do  it. 
A  child  is  ^constantly  seeking  balance,  instinctively  he 
does  all  kinds  of  things  with  this  end  in  view.  In  school 
where  the  children  are  free  to  do  it,  one  can  see  them  at 
odd  times  during  the  day  practising  being  a  frog  or  a 
butterfly.  They  appreciate  their  physical  needs  and  take 
opportunity  to  satisfy  them. 

Such  simple  exercises  would  naturally  be  followed  by 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  77 

more  difficult  ones,  until  by  spring  the  children  would  be 
ready  to  take  up  some  simple  four  line  songs.  But  one 
must  imagine  that  the  children  have  not  been  singing  be- 
fore this.  Naturally  and  spontaneously  they  hum  the 
tunes  appropriate  to  the  exercise  or  they  sing  some  words 
to  go  with  it. 

"The  kangaroo  can  jump 
The  kangaroo  can  bound, 
Jump,  bound 
He  never  makes  a  sound." 

They  sing  alone,  they  delight  in  singing  and  they  sing 
at  home.  They  are  just  as  likely  to  sing  a  request  as  to 
say  it.  If  they  wish  a  good-bye  or  a  good-morning  song, 
they  make  one  up.  They  realize  intuitively  that  singing 
is  just  another  way  of  expressing  one's  desires  or  thoughts. 
Miss  Bently  tells  a  story  of  being  in  a  kindergarten 
one  day  when  the  teacher  asked  for  some  new  good-bye 
songs.  Miss  Bentley  suggested  that  the  children  might 
make  up  their  own  songs,  so  each  child  sang  his  good- 
bye instead  of  saying  it.  Instead  of  one  good-bye  song 
the  teacher  had  twenty-five.  This  is  a  very  good  example 
of  our  need  to  appreciate  the  talents  latent  in  the  children. 

With  the  spring  the  children  should  be  eager  for  some 
little  songs,  like  those  in  Mother  Goose.  But  long  so- 
phisticated songs,  such  as  are  at  the  present  time  sung  in 
the  kindergarten,  are  quite  valueless  at  this  stage  of  the 
child's  development  and  should  be  postponed  until  later 
years. 

To  sum  up  the  chapter — music  in  the  kindergarten 
is  of  two  kinds,  the  music  played  to  the  children  and  the 


78  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

music  sung  by  the  children.  The  first  should  be  only  of 
the  very  best  quality  and  very  well  played ;  the  second, 
should  be  the  result  of  rhythmic  feeling  based  on  bodily 
movement  and  no  songs  should  be  given  until  spring  and 
then  only  simple  ones  as  the  need  of  the  children  require. 


CHAPTER  VII 

GAMES 

L^  NLIKE  the  Montessori  School,  the  kinder- 
garten has  a  set  time  for  games.  This  diver- 
gence may  be  due  to  the  different  idea  of 
liberty  practised  in  the  two  schools,  or  it  may 
be  due  to  the  fact  that  one  school  has  no  set  program 
while  the  other  has.  But,  doubtless,  the  justification  for 
kindergarten  games  lies  in  the  conception  of  the  school  as 
a  miniature  society  and  as  such  should  include  the  activi- 
ties which  go  on  in  the  outside  world.  The  game  period 
has  been  a  time  when  such  activities  could  be  worked  out. 
So  much  time  has  been  spent  on  games  typifying  the 
blacksmith,  the  carpenter,  the  knights,  games  of  nature, 
such  as  birds,  leaves,  and  caterpillar.  From  such  play 
the  child  was  supposed  to  gain  a  feeling  of  oneness  with 
man  and  nature.  And  undoubtedly  in  many  cases  he  did. 
Aside  from  this  traditional  material,  games  may  be 
played  for  four  reasons — physical,  aesthetic,  pleasurable, 
and  moral  reasons.  Whichever  aim  is  prominent  on  any 
day,  will  color  the  games.  Although  all  the  aims  must 
necessarily  be  considered,  if  the  children  are  to  receive 
proper  training. 

The  game  period  should  be  a  time  when  the  teacher 
has  opportunity  to  watch  the  physical  condition  of  the 
children.  Although  this  may  be  done  at  any  time,  the 
game  period  is  especially  important  as  movements  are, 

79 


8o  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

brought  into  play  which  are  not  used  at  other  times.  In 
running  and  throwing,  in  jumping  and  walking,  the 
child's  physical  needs  are  thrown  in  a  stronger  light  than 
they  are  when  he  is  working  at  the  tables.  The  watchful 
teacher  can  detect  what  is  lacking  in  each  child,  what 
are  his  especial  weaknesses  and  can  plan  means  to 
strengthen  them.  But  this  she  cannot  do  if  she  must  lead 
all  the  games  and  if  she  must  watch  the  clock.  She  can 
be  free  to  do  her  part  only  as  the  children  are  free. 

If  games  are  played  for  physical  development,  there 
are  many  things  which  must  be  considered.  The  teacher 
should  have  a  general  knowledge  of  what  games  are  phy- 
sicially  educative  and  how  they  re-act  on  the  body.  She 
should  know  which  movements  produce  certain  results, 
which  movements  are  harmful  and  which  are  beneficial. 
She  should  have  a  good  working  knowledge  of  biology, 
physiology  and  hygiene,  as  well  as  some  knowledge  of 
the  relative  measurements  of  young  children  and  their 
relation  to  growth. 

If  children  are  to  profit  physically  by  games,  they  must 
be  played  in  the  open  air.  At  first  blush,  this  suggestion 
may  sound  impossible  of  achievement.  But  it  is  not  so 
difficult  if  the  desire  is  there.  Every  school  has  a  play- 
ground no  matter  how  small.  It  would  be  an  easy  matter 
to  choose  some  time  for  the  games  when  the  rest  of  the 
school  is  occupied  indoors.  The  space  would  be  larger 
than  the  ring  in  the  kindergarten  room  in  breadth  and 
length  and  the  sky  is  a  wonderful  substitute  for  the  ceil- 
ing. It  is  not  only  a  physical  feeling  that  one  gets  from 
playing  out-of-doors.  It  is,  also,  a  mental  attitude  which 
changes  the  character  of  the  games  entirely.  After  all  it 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  81 

is  the  mental  idea  or  desire  back  of  the  physical  mani- 
festations of  the  games  which  determines  how  much  bene- 
fit is  derived  from  them.  If  they  are  played  with  a  will, 
with  an  absorbed  attention,  the  gain  is  not  only  physical 
good  but  spiritual  as  well.  But  unless  one  has  herself 
played  out-of-doors  and  felt  the  wideness  of  the  universe 
as  her  own,  it  is  difficult  to  realize  the  importance  of 
out-of-door  play.  There  is  a  certain  healthful,  spiritual 
uplift  which  comes  from  contact  with  the  earth.  Anyone 
who  has  romped  and  played  out-of-doors,  perhaps  by  the 
seashore  or  in  the  mountains,  shoes  and  stockings  dis- 
carded, can  appreciate  just  what  it  means  to  play  under 
the  sky  instead  of  in  a  walled  room.  To  those  who  have 
not  had  this  experience  no  adequate  idea  of  the  result  to 
be  obtained  can  be  had.  So  that  it  will  be  difficult  to 
make  them  realize  that  the  result  more  than  compensates 
for  the  trouble  involved.  The  small  dimensions  of  a 
school  yard  will  hardly  give  the  same  feeling  of  uplifts, 
especially  as  public  opinion  would  probably  insist  that 
the  children  keep  on  their  shoes  and  stockings.  But  the 
open  air  is  much,  much  to  be  preferred  to  a  close  school 
room.  For  it  has  been  my  observation  that  the  windows 
in  a  kindergarten  room  are  not  opened  when  the  games 
begin.  Perhaps  one  or  two  are  but  there  is  always  danger 
of  a  draft.  The  dust  from  the  floor  rises  in  fine  clouds 
and  vitiates  the  air  which  the  children  have  to  breathe  for 
the  rest  of  the  morning.  If  the  windows  are  opened  the 
room  is  made  cold  and  not  the  proper  place  for  children 
to  sit  in.  Perhaps  some  of  the  children  do  not  wish  to 
play  games  that  morning.  They  need  a  comfortable, 
warm  room  where  they  may  continue  their  work. 


82  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

For  all  children  should  not  be  required  to  take  part  in 
the  games.  It  may  be  that  some  child  is  too  occupied  with 
a  bit  of  work  to  leave  it  and  we  should  only  be  interfer- 
ing with  his  free  development  if  we  compelled  him  to 
drop  an  uncompleted  task  and  take  up  another  at  our 
dictation.  By  so  doing  we  are  teaching  him  habits  of  inat- 
tention and  lack  of  concentration  which  will  work  against 
him  in  the  future.  Also  there  may  be  a  physical  reason 
why  the  child  does  not  wish  to  play  and  an  insistence  on 
obedience  would  only  work  injury  to  him. 

Work  out-of-doors  would  necessitate  leaving  the  piano 
behind.  Therefore  the  children  would  be  freed  from  the 
nervous  strain  of  the  incessant  strum,  strum,  of  that  me- 
chanical instrument.  If  they  played  singing  games  they 
would  be  real  singing  games  and  not  games  played  on  the 
piano  and  sung  by  the  teacher.  For  when  the  piano  is 
used  the  tendency  is  to  rest  on  it  and  not  to  sing.  But 
when  the  full  responsibility  is  thrown  on  the  children, 
they  respond  and  make  the  game  their  own. 

Children  feel  at  home  out-of-doors.  They  are  in  an 
accustomed  situation  and  quickly  dominate  it.  In  a  very 
real  sense  they  play  the  games,  they  are  the  originators  of 
games,  they  choose  and  plan  the  games  and  the  teacher 
has  opportunity  to  study  them.  For  there  is  no  place  where 
individual  differences  display  themselves  so  freely  as  in 
out-of-door  games. 

It  is  sometimes  contended  that  the  gain  derived  from 
out-of-door  games  is  not  commensurate  with  the  trouble 
experienced  in  putting  on  caps  and  coats  and  marching 
out-of-doors.  But  if  we  adopt  the  Montessori  principle 
of  allowing  and  encouraging  the  children  to  help  them- 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  83 

selves,  this  disadvantage  becomes  a  gain.  For  in  putting 
on  and  taking  off  their  outer  garments  the  children  gain 
valuable  lessons  in  self-reliance.  It  means  very  much  to 
a  young  child  to  be  able  to  leave  a  room,  to  go  down 
stairs  steadily  and  quietly  and  to  drop  one  task  and  take 
up  another. 

If  the  children  are  free  to  manage  their  own  games, 
there  will  be  opportunity  for  freedom  of  choice  in  play. 
If  a  child  does  not  care  to  play,  he  need  not;  if  he  is 
tired  of  standing  he  may  sit  down ;  or  he  may  return  to 
another  task  if  he  wishes.  In  other  words,  he  will  not 
be  held  to  a  task  when  physicially  or  mentally  he  is  tired 
out.  Doubtless  a  skillful  teacher  can  tell  when  the  chil- 
dren are  tired  but  her  attention  is  so  occupied  with  keep- 
ing things  going  or  filling  in  the  time  that  many  weary 
children  must  necessarily  escape  her  attention.  Also  many 
children  must  be  harmed  before  she  acquires  sufficient 
experience  to  tell  how  much  endurance  the  children  have. 
And  in  the  present  state  of  kindergarten  procedure,  no 
child  is  ever  excused  from  the  games.  They  are  all  held 
to  the  same  standard  of  physical  endurance,  when  un- 
doubtedly many  children  are  on  certain  days  not  able  to 
measure  up  to  the  standard,  and  on  every  day,  certain 
young  children  should  not  be  held  to  the  same  require- 
ments as  the  other  ones.  Individual  differences  need  to 
be  respected  in  physical  games  just  as  much  as  in  any 
other  activity  in  the  kindergarten.  But  this  cannot  be 
done  while  we  have  a  game  period  to  which  all  children 
must  conform.  It  can  be  done  if  we  have  a  game  period, 
in  which  the  children  may  participate  or  not  as  they  wish. 

Kindergarten  games  are,  as  a  rule,  too  complex.    They 


84  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

are  so  complex  in  fact  that  the  children  cannot  play  them 
without  directions  and  for  this  or  other  reasons  they  are 
never  played  at  home.  Perhaps  it  is  an  advantage  to 
have  complex  games  dealing  with  typical  life  activities. 
But  such  activities  cannot  mean  much  to  the  child  unless 
he  is  filled  with  a  desire  to  repeat  them  in  his  play.  If 
this  is  the  case,  then  he  will  have  no  difficulty  in  working 
out  the  game  for  himself.  When  he  does  this,  he  has  been 
truly  self-active  and  has  really  entered  into  the  life  of  the 
experience.  After  such  a  spontaneous  expression  at  school, 
he  will  be  very  likely  to  repeat  the  experience  at  home 
and  will  thus  add,  bit  by  bit,  to  the  games  available  for 
use  at  home  and  in  the  street. 

The  fact  that  these  games  do  not  function  at  home  is  a 
proof  that  they  do  not  function  at  school.  They  are  sim- 
ply imposed  on  the  children.  Even  simple  games,  such  as 
puss-in-corner,  are  so  directed  by  the  teacher  that  it  is 
doubtful  if  the  children  ever  really  sense  the  possibilities 
of  the  game.  There  is  a  real  need  for  more  wholesome 
games  for  children  to  play  at  home  and  the  kindergarten 
should  meet  the  need. 

Another  reason  for  playing  games  may  be  found  in  the 
development  of  the  aesthetic  instinct.  To  this  point  of 
view  rhythms  lend  themselves  most  successfully.  For 
rhythms  are  not  only  the  foundation  of  music  work,  they 
are  also  a  means  of  physical  development.  Through 
rhythmic  exercises  the  children  learn  to  adjust  and  to 
correlate  their  muscular  organisms.  Thev  learn  to  con- 
trol their  bodies  as  one  member,  they  learn  to  adjust  each 
part  in  its  relation  to  the  other  parts  and  best  of  all  they 
learn  to  make  the  body  serve  the  mind.  However,  this 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  85 

end  cannot  be  achieved  by  the  practice  of  what  is  known 
as  rhythms  in  the  ordinary  kindergarten  parlance.  Usual- 
ly in  the  kindergarten  the  children  march  around  the 
room  and  do  whatever  the  piano  tells  them  to  do.  This 
exercise  consists  chiefly  of  running,  hopping,  jumping, 
walking,  etc.  In  a  few  kindergartens  it  is  different.  But 
no  attempt  is  made  to  correlate  all  the  various  parts  of 
the  body  in  the  movement.  The  back  and  head  are  held 
stiff  while  the  arms  or  legs  are  moved,  or  the  arms  are 
stiffened  while  the  legs  are  moved.  So  there  can  be  little 
of  value  in  such  piece-meal  exercise.  Rhythmic  exercise 
to  be  of  value  must  take  in  the  whole  body.  It  must  be  a 
wave  of  movement  which  includes  every  part  of  the  body. 
There  is  no  value  in  isolating  one  part  and  exercising 
it,  for  of  what  value  are  strong  arms  or  legs  if  the  back 
is  weak  or  of  a  strong  back  if  the  legs  are  not  equally 
developed.  Our  bodies  are  one  and  must  be  used  as  one, 
therefore  any  exercise  which  tends  to  isolate  one  part  is 
not  making  for  the  best  development  of  the  body.  What 
is  necessary  for  a  proper  use  of  the  body,  is  correlation 
among  the  members,  so  that  each  part  will  contribute 
to  the  facility  of  every  other  part  and  there  will  be  no 
inharmonious  movement  of  jarring  activity. 

The  necessity  for  such  harmony  and  repose  in  move- 
ment is  most  apparent  in  our  busy  American  life.  We  all 
live  at  a  tension  and  too  many  of  us  break  down  from 
over-worked  nerves.  We  do  not  know  how  to  relax,  as 
can  be  plainly  seen  in  the  tired  expression  on  our  faces 
in  the  street  cars  and  trains.  Especially  is  this  true  in 
schools  and  and  especially  do  women  teachers  break  down. 
There  must  be  something  fundamentally  wrong  with  any 


86  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

profession  which  requires  so  much  time  for  recuperation. 
Naturally  this  high  tension  on  the  part  of  the  teacher 
is  carried  over  to  the  pupils  and  they  are  started  in  their 
life's  journey  keyed  up  to  the  high  pitch  of  nervous  ex- 
citement. A  large  part  6f  this  over-stimulation  comes 
from  a  lack  of  co-ordination  of  the  muscular  organism. 
The  body  does  not  work  as  a  whole.  There  is  no  rela- 
tion among  the  different  parts,  consequently  there  is  a 
constant  jarring  and  shock  first  to  one  part  of  the  system 
and  then  to  another.  This  is  evinced  by  the  quick,  jerky 
way  in  which  many  teachers  handle  the  material  in  the 
kindergarten.  Too  many  times  one  sees  the  teacher  seize 
quickly  the  material  from  the  child's  hands  and  make 
some  necessary  adjustment.  Or  she  pulls  a  child  into 
line  or  jerks  a  chair  in  place,  showing  very  plainly  her 
own  lack  of  repose  and  suggesting  such  a  condition  to  the 
children.  Although  the  kindergarten  teacher  cares  for  the 
material  quite  as  much  as  the  Montessori  teacher,  yet 
she  has,  in  many  cases,  lost  the  gentle  touch  in  handling 
it  which  is  so  peculiarly  a  part  of  the  Montessori  method. 

Absolute  correlation  of  movement  and  repose  of  manner 
are  especially  necessary  in  the  kindergarten  if  more  free- 
dom is  to  be  granted  the  children.  Freedom  can  only  be 
controlled  by  one  who  is  controlled  herself,  quiet  in  lib- 
erty can  only  be  assured  through  one  who  herself  gives 
the  suggestion  of  quiet  and  repose.  Therefore  training 
in  correlated  movement  is  as  necessary  for  the  teacher 
as  it  is  for  the  student. 

Dramatic  playing  or  the  living  over  in  play  of  one's 
experience  in  life  is  as  old  as  primitive  man.  From  it 
came  the  folk  dance  and  many  primitive  festivals.  We 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  87 

see  the  survival  of  the  instinct  in  the  child's  desire  to  live 
over  again  his  own  simple  experiences.  Since  these  ex- 
periences are  so  simple  and  limited,  the  games  in  which  he 
portrays  them  must  be  simple  and  crude.  Any  attempt  at 
elaborate  representations  of  experiences  foreign  to  the 
child's  experience  can  only  be  an  imposition  from  with- 
out and  therefore  cannot  be  truly  educative. 

That  the  child's  own  experience  is  very  limited  is  ap- 
parent. But  this  experience  can  be  enlarged  through  stor- 
ies and  excursions  and  the  material  thus  given  may  be 
used  to  advantage  in  working  out  the  dramatic  game. 
If  the  experience  is  vivid  enough  the  child  will  be  able 
to  work  it  out  from  his  own  ideas.  If  the  teacher's  con- 
stant direction  is  necessary,  the  game  can  have  no  value  for 
him.  For  such  plays  are  useful  simply  as  a  means  of  self- 
expression.  This  they  cannot  be  if  the  teacher  plans  each 
phase  of  the  game  and  assigns  each  part. 

Such  attempts  at  portrayal  of  experience  of  various 
kinds  must  necessarily  be  crude,  for  childish  thought  is 
crude.  It  is  the  unadorned,  bold  things  which  appeal  to 
the  childish  imagination.  Just  as  the  savage  cares  for 
blatant  colors  and  undifferentiated  sounds,  so  does  the 
child  long  for  those  things.  And  when  left  to  his  own 
volition  he  will  reproduce  his  experiences  in  just  such 
crude  form. 

Games  should  be  played  for  the  mere  joy  in  playing 
them.  This  is  a  legitimate  cause  for  doing  any  thing. 
Pure  fun  and  laughter  are  so  stimulating,  have  such  a 
tonic  effect  on  the  system,  that  anything  which  produces 
them  is  worth  while.  Also  the  more  fun  there  is  asso- 
ciated with  the  kindergarten  games,  the  more  chance  there 


88  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

will  be  for  their  reproduction  at  home  and  the  problem 
of  "what  shall  we  play"  will  be  nearer  solution. 

Games  furnish  splendid  opportunity  for  moral  train- 
ing for  the  children  and  a  great  opportunity  for  the  teach- 
er to  gain  an  additional  insight  into  the  child's  character. 
Here,  as  on  a  battle  field,  is  shown  the  good  general,  the 
trusty  soldier,  the  willing  follower.  In  standing  aside, 
the  teacher  can  judge  which  child  needs  encouragement, 
which  one  needs  restraint  and  can  portion  out  to  each 
one  the  amount  of  responsibility  needed  for  his  growth. 

It  sounds  like  a  contradiction  to  say  that  the  teacher 
must  stand  back  and  yet  at  the  same  time  interfere.  Yet 
such  a  contradiction  is  demanded  of  every  kindergarten 
teacher.  Her  task  is  similar  to  that  laid  down  by  St.  Paul 
— "Be  ye  wise  as  serpents  and  harmless  as  doves."  Truly 
it  is  her  portion  to  be  as  wise  as  a  serpent  in  not  allow- 
ing any  anti-social  act,  in  so  adjusting  the  various  person- 
alities in  the  school  that  each  one  will  help  not  hinder 
the  others,  and  yet,  at  the  same  time,  making  herself  so 
inconspicuous  that  she  will  not  harm  or  thwart  any 
budding  individuality.  This  is  a  task  fit  for  a  magician 
and  will  require  all  the  personality  and  ingenuity  of  which 
the  teacher  is  capable. 

Games  are  in  the  kindergarten  and  are  there  to  stay. 
For,  however  much  the  Montessori  method  may  modify 
the  kindergarten,  it  can  hardly  be  the  part  of  wisdom  to 
dispense  with  such  a  valuable  part  of  the  programme. 
For  when  administered  properly  games  cannot  fail  to  be 
of  benefit  to  the  children,  physically,  aesthetically  and 
morally  as  well  as  being  a  great  source  of  pleasure. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

STORIES 

IT  seems  hardly  necessary  to  attempt  to  justify  the 
use  of  stones  and  poems  in  the  kindergarten.  For 
it  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge  that  all  children 
like  stories  and  that  poetry,  which  is  based  on 
rhythm,  appeals  to  them  instinctively.  Especially  in  this 
day  of  bridge  parties  and  automobiles,  is  the  necessity  for 
story-telling  laid  on  the  kindergarten  teacher.  For  the 
children  of  the  rising  generation  are  being  cheated  of  their 
birth-right.  In  very  few  homes,  either  rich  or  poor  is 
there  a  story  hour  and  we  must  make  up  the  deficiency. 
For  the  heritage  of  story  and  myth  is  the  right  of  every 
child. 

Children  are  fancy  full.  Childhood  is  an  age  of  dream- 
ing. It  is  the  time  for  decking  out  the  world,  as  yet  un- 
known, with  gay  colors  of  imagination.  Children  live  in 
a  world  which  is,  as  yet,  unknown,  surrounded  by  people 
whose  actions  and  thoughts  are  not  to  be  understood. 
Hence  there  grows  up  in  the  child's  mind  a  feeling  of 
mystery,  a  groping  about  for  hidden  reasons  and  explan- 
ations. 

At  first,  a  child  is  constantly  asking  what  and,  in  this 
way  he  learns  the  names  of  things  and  becomes  acquainted 
with  the  physical  world.  Later  his  word  is  why.  In  this 
way,  he  shows  his  need  and  his  desire  to  find  out  what  pro- 
duces these  effects — the  cause  back  of  the  phenomena. 


90  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

"What  makes  the  wheels  go  round?"  "What  makes  it 
snow?"  Here  the  story  steps  in  and  seems  to  give  an  ex- 
planation of  the  world  more  in  accordance  with  this  feel- 
ing of  profound  wonder  and  mystery.  Just  as  in  the  child- 
hood of  the  world  nothing  seemed  more  to  characterize 
the  races  then  existing  than  the  myth,  which  by  an  over- 
flow of  fancy  seeks  to  hide  the  meagreness  of  knowledge. 
So  the  child  delights  in  fairy  tales  because  they  sport  with 
the  fixed  conditions  of  actuality  and  present  to  him  a  pic- 
ture of  living  power  over  nature  and  circumstances. 

However,  children  vary  in  the  power  and  range  of 
their  imagination.  Some  are  very  matter  of  fact  and  rath- 
er resent  having  the  world  of  make-believe  thrust  upon 
them.  Others  live  in  a  state  of  perpetual  dreaming  and 
wake  only  with  a  start  to  the  reality  which  confronts 
them.  We  all  know  the  types — A. — the  child  who  sees 
in  a  fork  and  spoon  simply  implements  to  help  satisfy  its 
appetite. — B. — the  child  who  sees  in  these  same  imple- 
ments the  likeness  to  a  lady  with  flowing  skirts  or  the 
long  dress  of  a  baby.  Strange  as  it  may  seem,  Ruskin 
was  a  matter-of-fact  child  incapable  of  acting  a  part  or 
telling  a  tale.  This,  in  spite  of  his  poetic  writings  and 
the  fact  that  he  was  a  great  observer  of  nature. 

These  are  the  extremes,  the  average  child  comes  mid- 
way between  and  is  a  matter-of-fact  observer  and  yet  a 
dreamer,  passing  from  one  state  to  another  as  his  moods 
vary.  But  even  with  the  usual  child  the  age  makes  some 
difference  in  his  imaginings.  The  age  of  three  and  a  half 
is  especially  fanciful. 

Not  only  do  children  differ  in  their  power  of  imagining 
but  they  differ  in  the  kind.  Some  are  visualizers,  some 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  91 

live  in  a  world  of  sound,  others  in  a  world  of  movement 
— this  last  is  especially  true  of  active,  lively  children. 
There  are  other  differences  of  children  which  turn  on 
temperament,  tone  of  feeling  and  preponderant  direction 
of  the  emotions. 

To  take  up  the  last  point  the  kindergarten  must  be 
closely  bound  up  with  the  emotions.  For  some  children  like 
to  brood  on  gloomy,  terrifying  stories  while  others  re- 
joice in  bright,  happy  thoughts;  some  are  poetic,  others 
are  scientific  or  practical.  However,  as  yet  we  know  very 
little  of  what  state  the  mind  is  really  in  when  children 
make-believe.  Childish  thought  is  probably  like  that  of 
primitive  folk.  It  is  saturated  with  myths,  vigorous 
phantasy  holding  the  hand  of  reason  and  showing  him 
which  way  he  should  take. 

In  the  moral  life,  this  exposes  him  to  deception  by  oth- 
ers as  well  as  to  self-deception,  which  may  result  in  false- 
hood. On  the  other  hand,  it  may  be  used  to  form  moral 
habits,  through  suggestion.  The  power  of  suggestion  is 
apparent  in  every  day  life.  We,  all  of  us,  reflect  the  ideals 
of  those  with  whom  we  are  constantly  associated.  If 
thrown  with  people  of  coarse  nature  and  low  ideals,  we 
tend  to  lower  our  standards.  But,  if  our  associates  are 
idealists  of  high  type,  we  tend  to  raise  ourselves  to  their 
level — so  with  children.  In  working  with  children  in 
the  theatre  of  the  Education  Alliance  in  New  York,  it 
was  found  that  the  children  tended  to  act  in  their  own 
lives  the  parts  which  were  held  up  as  models  in  the  plays 
acted.  For  example,  the  good  princess  in  a  fairy  play 
would  have  a  noticeable  effect  on  the  child  as  well  as  on 
those  who  saw  the  play.  The  effect  is  just  as  real  to 


92  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

children  to  whom  stories  are  read.  The  characters  seem 
like  real  friends,  the  incidents  as  all  too  prboable  and  the 
examples  worthy  of  emulation.  Hence  there  is  no  end 
to  the  probabilities  of  worthy  suggestion  through  stories, 
suggestion  which  savors  not  at  all  of  the  mawkish  or  the 
sentimental;  which  does  not  point  a  moral;  but  which 
leaves  the  leaven  of  the  story  to  work  out  its  own  results. 

On  the  other  hand,  imagination  is  bound  up  with  sense- 
perception.  Children  explain  things  by  the  law  of  an- 
alogy. In  psychologic  terms  this  law  is  "To  any  situation 
for  which  neither  nature  nor  nurture  provides  a  response 
the  response  will  be  that  which  they  provide  for  the  sit- 
uation most  like  it;  or,  any  situation  which  has  by  nature 
and  nurture  no  connections  will  connect  with  that  re- 
sponse which  the  situation  most  like  it  would  connect 
with."*  For  example,  what  will  a  chicken  do  when 
it  for  the  first  time  sees  a  piece  of  yarn  ?  What  will  a 
student  unlearned  in  zoology  do  who  is  asked  to  name  the 
picture  of  an  Amphioxus? 

"There  being  no  response  provided  for  that  particular 
situation  by  inborn  constitution  or  previous  experience, 
the  individual  will  respond  as  he  would  to  some  situation 
like  it,  to  which  instinct  or  training  has  provided  a  re- 
sponse. The  chicken  will  respond  to  the  yarn  as  he 
would  instinctively  to  a  worm,  will  seize  it,  run  away 
and  begin  to  swallow  it.  The  student  will  call  the  pic- 
ture Amphioxus  a  worm,  though  it  is  not,  because  exper- 
ience has  connected  the  word  worm  with  long,  legless, 
furless  things."* 


*Thorndike — Element!  of  Psychology. 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  93 

The  world  is  such  a  curious,  puzzling  place,  with  so 
many  things  in  it  which  cannot  be  explained  either  by 
nature  or  nurture  that  the  child  is  forced  to  explain 
them  by  means  of  the  small  knowledge  which  he  has  gain- 
ed through  sense-perception.  It  follows  that  whatever 
we  do  to  enlarge  the  scope  of  his  sense  perception  will 
figure  largely  in  the  development  of  his  imagination. 
Therefore  stories  in  the  kindergarten  are  not  isolated 
from  the  rest  of  the  curriculum  but  are  intimately  related 
and  bound  up  with  all  the  other  activities,  especially 
the  handwork.  Not  only  do  children  explain  things  by 
the  law  of  analogy,  but  they  have  a  strong  tendency  to 
personify  inanimate  things.  They  see  things  not  as  dead 
and  inert  but  as  alive  and  conscious.  As  a  child,  who 
was  learning  his  letters,  made  two  facing  each  other,  FF. 
He  explained  this  by  saying  that  the  letters  were  talking 
to  each  other.  Children  very  often  have  the  feeling  that, 
after  all  the  people  in  the  house  have  gone  to  bed,  the 
furniture  and  bric-a-brac  begin  to  talk  together.  It  is 
this  feeling  which  Eugene  Field  has  expressed  so  well  in 
his  duel  between  the  gingham  dog  and  the  calico  cat. 

This  personalizing  element  in  a  child's  imagination 
leads  naturally  to  an  attitude  of  sympathy  towards  inan- 
mate  things.  Of  course,  if  they  are  alive  they  must  have 
feelings  and,  as  the  only  emotions  we  know  are  our  own,' 
naturally  the  child  endows  inanimate  things  with  emo- 
tional responses  similar  to  his  own.  Jean  Ingelo  reports 
that  she  felt  sorry  for  the  stones  on  the  driveway  and  mov- 
ed them  about  so  that  they  might  not  weary  of  one  place. 
Another  child  brought  some  autumn  leaves  to  his  mother 
because  she  was  sorry  that  they  were  dead.  Probably 


94  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

she  did  not  really  look  upon  the  leaves  as  alive.  She 
saw  only  the  fact  that  the  leaves  had  fallen  and  filled 
in  the  rest  with  her  imagination.  Such  manifestations 
are  due,  doubtless,  to  a  lack  of  ability  to  think  and  also 
to  a  lack  of  force  for  mental  control. 

Another  way  by  which  the  child  combines  and  trans- 
forms objects  is  by  association.  For  example,  we  read 
into  words  the  characteristics  which  are  peculiar  to  the 
animal  whose  name  is  used.  In  this  way,  crocodile 
might  look  hard  and  lanky ;  cow  might  look  big  and  soft ; 
wheat  might  look  yellow  and  wavy.  Hence  certain  colors 
or  sounds  may  take  on  repulsive  or  attractive  features. 

This  fact,  that  the  imagination  is  related  to  sense  per- 
ception, leads  children  to  the  habit  of  projecting  fancies 
and  giving  them  a  place  and  a  name.  Hence  the  idea 
receives  a  certain  fixity  and  solidity.  The  fancy  may  start 
from  the  world — from  a  desire  to  fill  in  unknown  places 
as  holes  or  the  roads,  or  it  may  start  from  a  desire  to  ex- 
press a  fancy  which  is  in  the  mind — to  embody  in  form 
what  is  nebulous  fancy. 

From  the  preceding  discussion  of  the  imagination,  it 
will  be  inferred  that,  since  stories  appeal  to  the  imagin- 
ation it  is  not  possible  to  introduce  stories  to  children  un- 
til they  have  acquired  a  knowledge  of  language  and  until 
they  can  associate  words  with  ideas.  It  takes  some  growth 
toward  maturity  before  chidren  are  capable  of  realizing 
that  what  is  being  spoken  tallies  with  the  ideas  in  their 
minds.  In  the  beginning  words  are  not  so  vivid  as  pic- 
tures to  children.  Pictures  in  color  appeal  especially  to 
the  young  child  for  here  he  has  an  opportunity  to  see  pro- 
rrayed  the  people  and  objects  to  which  he  is  accustomed 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  95 

without  the  premediation  of  perplexing  words.  Fam- 
iliar and  cherished  pictures  come  to  appear  as  alive  to 
children.  They  name  the  children  in  them  and  make  up 
family  relationships,  very  often  according  to  their  own 
family  lives.  Later  words,  too,  become  alive  to  children. 
They  take  on  meaning  and  characteristics  until  they  may 
be  called  "winged  words."  Perhaps,  in  early  years, 
words  may  be  objective.  They  may  call  up  vivid  images 
which  may  be  intensified  by  a  feeling  of  reverence  for  the 
speaker.  But,  very  often,  these  images  are  the  child's 
own.  He  builds  up  his  own  image  of  the  story  and  re- 
sents any  interference  from  without.  We  often  spoil 
the  story  by  too  much  explanation.  A  story  is  told  of  a 
mother  who  said  to  her  child  that  she  feared  he  could 
not  understand  the  story.  His  reply  was  that  he  could 
understand  very  well,  if  she  would  not  explain  so  much. 
We  must  all  sympathize  with  this  attitude,  it  seems  to 
me.  For,  do  we  not  all  resent,  what  Dr.  Crothers  calls 
"the  footnotes  barking  like  little  dogs  at  the  foot  of  the 
page."  And  our  sympathy  goes  out  to  the  old  lady  who 
could  have  understood  her  Bible  if  it  had  not  been  for  the 
commentaries.  We,  as  adults,  suffer  so  much  from  too 
much  explanation  that  surely  we  can  enter  into  the  feel- 
ings of  little  children  who  are  so  much  more  at  the  mercy 
of  the  explainer. 

It  may  be  for  this  reason,  that  children  objectify 
words,  or  it  may  be  from  a  sense  of  rhythm  or  it  may  be 
because  of  both,  that  children  delight  in  the  repetition 
of  the  same  words.  In  fact,  we  have  taken  advantage 
of  this  tendency,  to  such  an  extent  that  sometimes  there 
is  nothing  back  of  the  mere  repetition.  Percival  Chubb 


96  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

gives  the  Arabella  and  Arminta  stories  as  an  example  of 
the  excess  to  which  such  repetition  may  be  carried  until 
it  verges  on  monotony  and  absurdity. 

We  may  now  ask  ourselves  what  is  the  value  of  story- 
telling to  children  in  the  kindergarten?  A  few  of  these 
values  have  been  indicated  in  the  preceding  pages. 

Stories  make  an  appeal  to  the  imagination  and,  as  the 
imagination  is  closely  related  to  sense-perception,  stories 
serve  to  interpret  the  child's  own  experience  to  him.  Stor- 
ies of  every  day  life  make  vivid  and  explain  to  him  things 
which  are  obscure  or  mysterious  in  his  environment.  They 
interpret  his  environment  to  him  and  explain,  in  a  way, 
what  the  meaning  of  life  is. 

The  telling  of  stories  gives,  also,  an  opportunity  to  in- 
culcate high  ideals,  to  take  the  common  things  of  life  and 
put  them  on  an  ideal  basis;  to  show  the  right  motive 
which  should  underlie  the  events  of  every  day  life.  This 
point  has  been  discussed  under  the  topic,  suggestion.  It  is 
through  suggesting  high  ideals,  not  by  driving  home  a 
moral,  that  such  a  result  can  be  accomplished. 

Another  legitimate  use  of  stories  is  to  give  training 
in  the  right  sense  of  humor.  That  we  need  such  training 
need  scarcely  be  demonstrated.  One  has  only  to  recall  the 
vulgarity  of  the  vaudeville  stage  or  the  crudity  of  the 
colored  supplement  to  the  Sunday  papers  to  realize  that 
some  training  along  this  line  is  necessary.  But  our  best 
efforts  in  the  kindergarten  will  be  little  less  than  neutral, 
unless  we  do  something  to  improve  the  supplement  and 
the  stage.  For,  whatever  we  may  inculcate  during  the 
week  will  be  largely  nullified  by  the  parents'  example  on 
Sunday.  There  is  a  great  opportunity  right  here  for  us 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  97 

to  combine  with  some  woman's  club  to  raise  the  standard 
of  the  colored  supplement.  Undoubtedly  it  appeals  to 
the  child's  instinctive  love  for  color  and  action;  it  gives 
him  great  pleasure  and  could  be  made  a  source  of  profit 
as  well  as  amusement.  And  along  with  the  colored  sup- 
plement as  it  now  exists,  should  be  discarded  all  stories 
that  deal  with  coarse  fun  and  ill-timed  jests.  A  right- 
sense  of  humor  is  one  of  the  best  assets  that  one  can  have 
to  make  life  bright  and  hopeful  for  onesself  and  for  others. 
Little  children  are  naturally  endowed  with  a  love  of 
fun  and  frolic.  We  have  the  opportunity  to  enrich  their 
lives  by  cultivating  this  trait  and  keeping  it  in  legitimate 
lines. 

Stories  should  be  good  literature  for  their  purpose 
should  be  to  serve  as  an  introduction  to  and  a  founda- 
tion for  a  love  of  the  best  in  literature.  Professor  Chubb 
makes  the  suggestion  that  in  selecting  stories  "it  must  be 
borne  in  mind  that  the  child  is  a  denizen  of  two  worlds, 
— the  so-called  real  world  of  his  prosaic  elders,  and  the 
more  vitally  real  world  of  fairy  land,  wonderland,  make- 
believe,  through-the-looking-glass,  or  what  you  will.  He 
is  trying  to  find  himself,  and  must  be  helped  to  find  him- 
self, in  these  two  worlds;  the  imperious,  unyielding,  law- 
ridden,  yet  fascinating  and  wonderful  world  of  fact;  the 
ideal,  play-world  of  art.  He  has  both  something  of  the 
curiosity  and  scepticism  of  the  scientist  and  the  creative, 
imaginative  impluse  of  the  artist.  He  makes  his  own  world 
of  fancy;  and  although  he  recognizes  more  and  more 
that  it  is  not  a  real,  but  a  make-believe  palace  of  pleasure, 
he  remains  in  it  because  it  allows  him  scope  for  his  powers. 
*  *  *  In  one  sense  the  world  of  make-believe  is  as 


98  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

real,  indeed  more  real,  than  its  sister  world.  The  world 
peopled  by  Jack,  Crusoe,  Alice,  Mowgli,  is  as  real  as  is 
the  world  peopled  for  us  grown-ups  by  Romeo  and  Juliet, 
Roselind,  Prospero,  Miranda,  Colombe.  It  must  be  used 
so  as  to  develop  the  ethical  and  aesthetic  content  implied 
in  the  relations  established  between  the  people  who  in- 
habit it. 

"It  is  a  mistake,  often  made,  to  press  one  world  upon 
the  child  at  the  expense  of  the  other.  The  realists  spend 
their  energies  almost  exclusively  upon  the  attempt  to  re- 
late the  child  to  the  actual  world  about  him.  Undoubt- 
edly, as  already  stated,  he  is  greatly  interested  in  that 
world.  Nevertheless,  it  is  to  begin  with,  a  shadow  world 
that  pales  before  the  dramatic  reality  of  his  world  of 
make-believe.  His  heart  is  not  in  it,  his  imagination  is 
not  in  it,  as  they  are  in  his  world  apart;  he  generally  con- 
cerns himself  with  it  as  the  home  of  fairy  power,  investing 
its  objects,  its  animals,  and  living  things  with  the  human- 
ized, fairy  life  of  his  creative,  idealizing  fancy.  We  may 
do  better  justice  to  this  world  of  make-believe  if  we  rec- 
ognize it  as  the  art  world  of  his  elders,  that  world,  of 
"feigned  history,"  to  use  Bacon's  words,  wherever  his 
mind  finds  "some  shadow  of  satisfaction  in  those  points 
wherein  the  nature  of  things  doth  deny  it;"  a  world  that 
"doth  raise  and  erect  the  mind  of  submitting  the  shows  of 
things  to  the  desires  of  the  mind ;  whereas  reason  doth 
buckle  and  bow  the  mind  into  the  nature  of  things." 
Not  therefore  to  cancel  this  real  world  of  poetry,  but  to 
establish  it  in  right  and  consistent  relation  to  the  other 
real  world  of  science,  must  be  our  educational  aim."* 


*Percival  Chubb.  The  Teaching  of  English. 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD  99 

The  form  in  which  even  the  simplest  stories  are  told 
to  children  should  be  of  the  best.  That  the  English 
should  be  good  is  so  apparent  that  we  need  not  insist 
upon  it.  "But  there  is  some  reason  for  insisting  that  it 
be  appropriate.  This  does  not  mean  that  it  shall  be 
monosyllabic;  but  that  it  shall  be  ideal  children's  speech, 
tending  toward  the  graphic,  concrete,  imaginative.  Let  it 
be  suggestive,  as  primitive  speech  is,  by  trope  and  figure. 
The  child  is  a  symbolist  in  language  as  in  other  things. 
His  world  is  a  picture-world,  and,  to  reach  him,  language 
must  start « pictures,  just  as  Homer's  epithets  start  the 
pictures  of  his  gods  and  heroes,  Apollo  the  Far-darter, 
fleet-footed  Achilles,  ox-eyed  Hero,  horse-taming  Dio- 
medes,  Hector  of  the  Gleaming  helm."* 

Stories  makes  such  an  appeal  to  children  that  they 
delight  in  living  them  over.  This  enables  them  to  clarify 
their  own  ideas  and  leads  to  more  accurate  thinking  as 
well  as  to  an  enlargement  of  their  experiences.  How- 
ever, "not  every  story  told  to  the  child  is  suitable  for 
reproduction.  The  story  with  well-defined  beginning, 
middle,  and  end  is  obviously  the  best  to  begin  with.  If 
the  parts  are  logically  connected,  one  part  will  call  for 
and  suggest  the  next.  Different  types  of  stories  will  call 
for  different  treatment.  Jack  o'  the  Beanstalk,  for  in- 
stance, is  a  series  of  episodes,  with  no  inevitable  sequence  ; 
and  therefore  the  teacher  may  well  help  freely  in  recalling 
the  order.  In  Cinderella,  on  the  other  hand,  the  events 
must  happen  in  a  certain  order,  and  that  the  child  will 
discover  for  himself,  if  he  has  grasped  the  story  in  its 


*Chubb.    The  Teaching  of  English. 


ioo  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

unity.  The  story  of  Cinderella  suggests  also  another  line 
of  development,  the  filling-in  process — as  the  child's  pow- 
ers expand,  descriptive  touches  may  be  added  in  the  in- 
terest of  dramatic  realization — added  by  the  teacher,  as 
she  repeats  the  story,  to  keep  pace  with  the  child's  grow- 
ing capabilities.  Detail  is  a  weariness  to  the  child  at 
first;  and  upon  no  score  are  book  stories  to  be  so  fre- 
quently criticised  as  upon  this,  that  they  halt  too  much 
over  uneventful  detail.  We  are  too  literal ;  not  suggestive 
enough.  All  the  great  masters  are  tersely  suggestive. 
The  child  is  rightly  bored  by  a  great  deal  of  our  "fine" 
talking  and  writing. 

And  finally,  one  perfectly  legitimate  use  of  stories  is 
for  the  sake  of  the  pure  pleasure  which  we  derive  from 
them.  The  person  who  loves  reading  has  within  him  a 
resource  of  pleasure  which  will  stand  him  in  good  stead 
whatever  his  need.  There  is  no  saner,  cheaper  form  of 
amusement;  there  is  no  greater  refuge  in  misfortune; 
there  is  no  better  way  to  broaden  one's  horizon.  So  we  can- 
not begin  too  soon  to  show  children  that  there  is  great 
pleasure  in  literature,  that  books  and  stories  mean  having 
a  good  time. 

All  that  has  been  said  of  stories  may  apply  equally  as 
well  to  poems,  with  this  addition,  that  poetry  is  so  closely 
connected  with  music  through  rhythm  that  in  teaching  the 
children  good  poetry,  we  are  appealing  to  an  instinct  for 
rhythm  and  laying  the  foundation  for  music. 

We  need  more  poetry  and  more  stories  in  the  kinder- 
garten. In  many,  many  homes,  the  mothers  are  too  busy 
working,  in  many  cases  away  from  the  home,  to  have  the 
time  to  feed  a  child's  soul  in  this  way.  In  these  cases, 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD          101 

as  well  as  with  mothers  in  more  comfortable  homes,  the 
need  for  such  culture  is  not  felt,  or  life  is  too  full  to  stop 
for  it  or  the  material  available  is  not  known.  As  it  would 
not  be  excessive  for  a  mother  to  tell  a  child  a  story  every 
day,  so  it  is  not  excessive  for  four  stories  to  be  told  in  the 
kindergarten  during  the  week,  with  one  day  for  the  re- 
telling of  stories  by  the  children.  By  keeping  the  group 
small  and  presenting  only  the  best  material  to  the  chil- 
dren the  advantages  to  be  derived  from  this  change  in 
the  programme  would  be  enormous. 


CHAPTER  IX 

NATURE  STUDY 

HE  very  name  kindergarten;  garden  of  chil- 
dren, suggests  an  entirely  new  conception  of 
what  education  should  be.  "It  suggests  a 
new  setting  for  childhood,  its  rescue  from  an 
artificial  to  a  pristine  state,  at  a  time  when  fit  environ- 
ment is  not  only  the  best  background  for,  but  by  far  the 
most  potent  and  central  of,  all  the  influences  of  education. 
Perhaps  sometime  when  the  reaction  from  the  present 
urban  and  suburban  conditions  is  complete  and  all  schools 
are  in  the  country  (as  increasing  transportation  facilities 
— trolleys,  autos,  and,  perhaps  before  we  know  it,  flying 
machines — may  make  practical),  and  when  the  school- 
garden  movement  shall  have  done  its  perfect  work,  our 
near  posterity,  if  not  we,  may  realize  this  entrancing  ideal 
of  the  reunion  of  the  heart  of  childhood  with  the  heart  of 
nature.  One  need  not  be  a  bucolic  poet,  a  landscape 
gardener,  a  horticulturist,  or  even  a  trained  agriculturist 
to  revel  in  imaginings  of  what  a  scenic  farm  school  the 
great  all-mother  nature  has  made  possible  for  the  early 
stages  of  human  life.  Would  that  pedagogues  were  oc- 
casionally inclined  to  see  visions  and  dream  dreams,  in- 
stead of  being,  as  a  class  the  most  conservative,  prosaic 
and  plodding,  if  not  just  now,  under  the  dominion  of 
modern  modes  of  supervision  in  this  country,  the  most 
servile,  of  all  half-skilled  laborers.  Walks,  beds,  bath- 

102 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD          103 

houses,    nurseries,     lawns,     playgrounds,     shade,     brooks, 
ponds,   fertilizing,  seed   time  and  harvest,  moisture  and 
drought,  grafting,  budding,  cross-fertilization  by  insects, 
the  lessons  of  the  soil,  play  in  stone  fields  and  snow  and 
ice,   tree  setting,  with  arbor-day  functions,   cutting  and 
lumbering,  sugaring,  all  the  impressive  lessons  of  the  pro- 
cessional of  the  seasons  with  carefully  chosen  animal  and 
bird  life  which  means  so  much  to  children,  learning  and 
being  taught  on  foot  and  out  of  doors  and  from  objects, 
not  from  words  or  even  pictures — such  is  nature's  peda- 
gogium.     Of  nearly  every  item  of  her  curriculum  we  rob 
the  child  during  his  most  impressionable  years  when  the 
soul  is  most  plastic  to  her  influences,  shut  children  in- 
doors, teach  them  in  doors  for  years  the  attenuated  and 
dessicated  three  R's,  that  they  may  learn  to  con  books 
and  newspapers  and,  above  all,  to  figure.    We  pay  a  ter- 
rible price  for  their  education.     We  often  succeed  in  im- 
muning  the  child   from  experiences  natural   to  his  age. 
We  rear  him  in  ignorance  of  and  isolate  him  from  con- 
tact with  the  great  influences  that  have  made  man  man. 
Thus,  with  all  our  precautions,  we  take  wizened  souls 
in  wizened  bodies  by  kidnapping  the  child  from  his  only 
true  and  real  home  which  God  has  decreed  and  nature 
has  prepared  for  him."* 

Dr.  Hall  has  painted  a  most  entrancing  picture  of  what 
a  kindergarten  should  be.  What  a  pleasure  it  will  be 
when  we  can  attain  this  ideal.  But,  in  the  meantime,  is 
there  not  something  which  we  can  do,  even  we  in  the  city, 
to  help  toward  the  accomplishment  of  this  ideal? 


*G.  Stanley  HalL    Educational  Problems,  pp.  3-4. 


104  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

The  easiest  thing  to  do,  of  course,  is  to  stay  just  where 
we  are  but  to  keep  all  the  windows  in  the  room  open  all 
the  time.  This  would  necessitate  a  change  in  the  cloth- 
ing of  the  children  and  some  conference  with  the  par- 
ents. But  it  could  be  accomplished  in  all  probability  be- 
cause no  expense  would  be  attached  to  it. 

Or  the  children  might  be  taken  out-of-doors  for  half 
the  morning.  There  is  almost  always  a  school  yard  where 
games  could  be  played,  or  perhaps  a  small  park  near, 
where  not  only  games  could  be  played,  but  observations  of 
nature  could  be  made  as  well. 

Very  many  buildings  have  flat  roofs,  which  might  be 
used  for  a  kindergarten.  This,  of  course,  would  entail 
some  expense  and  so  might  meet  with  great  opposition. 
But  we  can  at  least  make  the  attempt  and  perhaps  in  years 
to  come,  gain  our  point. 

In  such  an  open-air  schoolroom  the  children  would 
gain  a  familiarity  with  the  expanse  of  the  sky,  with  the 
brilliancy  of  the  sunlight,  with  the  picturesqueness  of  the 
clouds,  with  the  nature  of  the  wind,  with  the  fascination 
of  rain  and  snow.  An  acquaintance  with  these  most 
needed  things  for  the  expansion  of  the  soul  is  denied  to 
most  city  children  living  between  tall  buildings  in  a  nar- 
row street.  No  amount  of  talk  or  wealth  of  pictures  can 
ever  give  him  any  adequate  idea  of  just  what  it  means  to 
be  one  with  the  elements.  Even  a  country  child  may 
miss  some  of  this,  if  kept  too  close  within  walls. 

If  none  of  these  things  are  possible,  if  we  must  contin- 
ue to  remain  indoors,  then  we  must  bring  nature  indoors. 
If  there  is  no  place  outside  for  the  children  to  make 
gardens,  at  least  they  might  be  allowed  to  have  gardens 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD          105 

inside.  Each  child  could  be  furnished  with  a  cigar  box 
and  some  seeds  and  would  find  in  caring  for  even  this  lit- 
tle plot,  pleasure  and  profit. 

Throughout  the  year,  there  are  various  wild  flowers 
and  leaves  which  can  be  brought  in  from  time  to  time.  In 
the  spring  and  fall,  there  is  no  end  to  the  possibilities 
along  this  line.  But  even  in  the  winter  months,  the 
woods  are  full  of  berries  and  leaves  which  would  keep 
nature  constantly  before  the  children. 

The  keeping  of  live  animals  in  the  room  is  always  a 
problem.  It  is  a  question  whether  it  is  even  right  to  cage 
an  animal.  This  doubt  may  be  reduced  to  a  minimum  in 
the  case  of  many  animals  and  the  benefit  to  the  children 
may  counter-balance  the  objection.  But  there  are  ani- 
mals which  may  run  at  large,  such  as  a  cat  or  dog,  that 
might  be  kept  in  the  kindergarten.  Such  a  lively  addi- 
tion to  the  school  might  break  up  the  quiet  decorum 
which  now  pervades  the  kindergarten.  But  that  would 
be  one  more  reason  for  having  an  animal  to  run  at  large. 
It  would  certainly  break-up  the  feeling  of  constraint  and 
make  the  place  more  home  like. 

In  caring  for  the  garden,  no  matter  how  small,  and 
for  whatever  animal  may  be  selected  to  share  the  life  of 
the  school  with  the  children,  the  children  gain  an  insight 
into  the  care  which  is  bestowed  upon  them.  They  are  so 
dependent  that,  of  necessity,  much  must  be  done  for  them. 
In  accepting  so  much,  there  is  always  the  danger  that  at- 
tention to  oneself  may  be  exacted  as  one's  due  with  no 
implied  obligation  of  service  in  return.  Even  small  ser- 
vices exacted  and  rendered  willingly  by  small  people  can- 
not give  them  the  sense  of  responsibility  which  is  needed 


io6  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

for  character  building.  But  this  feeling  can  be  gained 
by  caring  for  plants  and  animals.  It  is  easily  seen  that  if 
not  cared  for  they  will  die  and  each  child  will  readily 
feel  that  he  was  responsible.  In  this  way,  a  feeling  of 
responsibility  and  of  judgment  is  awakened  and  quick- 
ened, which  must  be  productive  of  good  in  life. 

But  no  adequate  nature  work  can  be  done  in  the  kin- 
dergarten unless  we  change  our  viewpoint.  As  long  as 
our  insistence  is  on  gifts  and  occupations  and  morning 
talks  and  the  Mother  Play,  we  will  not  be  able  to  give 
the  child  the  background  of  nature  which  he  so  sorely 
needs.  For  "the  child  of  to-day  has  few  opportunities  to 
adapt  himself  to  nature,  as  civilization  steps  in  and  makes 
this  adaptation  for  him. 

"As  the  race  came  to  nature  consciousness  through  first- 
hand contact  with  nature  in  its  relation  to  human  needs, 
whether  domestic,  industrial,  aesthetic,  or  religious,  so 
the  child  must  come  to  consciousness  of  needs  in  his  life 
which  nature  alone  can  supply. 

"Nature  subjects  must  be  selected  in  relation  to  human 
needs,  through  direct  contact  with  it,  through  the  method 
of  experiment.  Little  children  need  nature  experience 
and  nature  wonder  and  nature  play  as  a  basis  for  later 
nature  study  and  nature  work. 

"If  this  principle  is  applied  in  practice,  it  rubs  out  of 
the  programme  and  course  of  study  much  of  the  unre- 
lated nature  work  now  being  used  in  the  kindergarten 
and  primary  school.  The  central  interest  in  child  life  is 
not  what  nature  is  doing,  but  what  man  is  doing."* 


*The  Kindergarten,  p.  279. 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD          107 

The  teacher  can  only  teach  what  she  knows  and  what 
she  believes.  So  any  permanent  reform  in  our  nature 
work  must  start  where  all  reforms  must  start — in  the 
training  school.  Here  the  student  must  be  given  ade- 
quate studies  of  nature,  studies  which  will  give  her  a 
scientific  grasp  of  the  subject,  as  well  as  a  love  for  all 
nature  and  a  desire  to  be  with  nature  for  her  own  wel- 
fare as  well  as  to  take  the  children  to  it.  "She  must  know 
something  of  the  love  of  beasts,  birds,  flowers  and  trees. 
Her  nature  should  be  breezy  with  out  of  doors  and  bring 
the  spirit  of  nature  in  and  take  the  child  to  it.  The  ideal 
test  of  her  work  would  be  what  she  could  do  with  a  band 
of  children  in  such  an  environment  as  I  have  described 
above  or  in  a  day  spent  in  rambles  over  and  gambols 
through  gardens  and  groves,  by  water,  amidst  the  fall  of 
leaves,  or  among  the  most  edifying  flora  and  fauna.  The 
ideal  kindergartener  should  know  and  feel  and  love  na- 
ture and  stand  in  heart-to-heart  relations  with  her,  and 
be  able  to  expose  the  child  to  all  of  the  influences  to  which 
it  is  susceptible.  This  should  be  first  and  foremost  and 
the  more  special  indoor  work  should  be  developed  on  this 
basis.  She  should  seek  health  in  all  its  new  loftier  mean- 
ings and  strive  to  reproduce  and  keep  alive  in  herself  the 
first  thoughts  and  experiences  of  the  race,  and  impact 
them  to  the  children  in  their  most  receptive  periods. 

"Thus,  I  would  greatly  enlarge  the  scope  of  nature 
study  in  kindergarten  training  schools.  Our  forebears 
for  countless  ages  knew  no  other  teacher  than  nature,  and 
to  all  the  notes  and  harmonies  in  her  magnificent  sym- 
phony, the  soul  is  attuned  in  childhood,  and  if  the  chords 
are  not  smitten  betimes,  there  is  grave  loss.  I  would 


io8  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

not  entirely  exclude  the  gifts  and  occupations,  but  they 
should  be  once  for  all  completely  sub-ordinated  and  rele- 
gated to  a  very  small  place  in  the  kindergarten  as  com- 
pared to  nature  work.  The  latter  should  be  of  a  unique 
and  not  yet  quite  adequately  appreciated  kind.  Popular 
Science  and  work  of  the  naturalist  afield  may  nourish  the 
kindergartner's  soul  but,  what  is  more  central  in  her  needs, 
I  have  attempted  elsewhere  to  describe  (cf.  My  Adoles- 
cence, chapter  XII,  Adolescent  Feelings  Toward  Nature 
and  a  New  Education  in  Science).  The  great  themes 
and  categories  here  are:  sky,  stars,  sun,  moon,  clouds, 
thunder,  water  in  its  various  forms — sea  and  shore,  lake 
and  river — wind,  fire,  mists,  and  their  most  marvelous 
instincts,  such  as  cross-fertilization,  their  modes  of  pro- 
ducing and  rearing  their  young,  etc.,  plants  and  animal 
types,  and  highest  of  all,  primitive  men  and  children, 
popularizing  results  of  anthropology.  These  should  be 
felt  and  told  of,  sometimes  in  a  more  or  less  mystic  way, 
so  as  to  stir  the  ancestral  reverberations  which  bring  a 
regenerative  vital  touch  between  the  child  soul  and  that 
of  the  race,  which  once  and  somewhere  worshipped  all 
these  objects,  making  them  of  supreme  value  and  of  most 
vital  interest.  On  such  themes  and  their  manifestations 
in  myth  and  story,  the  kindergartner  should  nourish  her 
soul  and  recognize  that,  to  nothing  that  vitally  stirs  her, 
will  the  child's  soul  be  unresponsive.  Something  like  this 
is  the  religious  background  out  of  which  all  human  cul- 
ture grew,  for  religion,  science,  art,  and  literature  came 
forth  out  of  the  heart  of  nature.  This  is  the  all-condi- 
tioning, all-impelling  interest  that  motivates  every  form 
of  education  that  is  truly  vital.  This,  too,  normalizes  as 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD          109 

well  as  elevates,  broadens  and  enriches  the  emotional  life 
of  young  womanhood  as  nothing  else  can,  and  keeps  sen- 
timent safeguarded  against  relapse  to  sentimentality.  Just 
as  only  the  woman's  soul  knows  what  flowers  really 
mean,  so  she  is  better  fitted  than  man  to  give  the  most 
sound,  human  response  to  nature's  primitive  teaching, 
which  fit  her  heart  as  nothing  that  our  academic  curricu- 
lum oilers  can  do. 

"In  fine,  I  would  have  all  kindergartners  trained  chief- 
ly in  this  type  of  nature  study,  focusing  in  the  study  of 
childhood.  We  need  not  entirely  exclude  the  quaint  phil- 
osophy of  Froebel,  and  his  pedagogical  technic,  for  these, 
especially  the  former,  are  not  entirely  without  value  for 
the  ideal  education  of  young  womanhood  toward  which 
the  world  is  now  groping.  But,  if  anything  is  now  plain 
in  this  obscure  field,  it  is  that  nature  must  be  chiefly 
stressed  as  the  source  of  all  other  intellectual  and  moral 
interests.  Child-study,  as  it  has  now  taken  form,  prom- 
ises to  be  the  best  logical,  genetic  and  pedagogical  form 
of  all  the  sciences  that  deal  with  life.  When  we  reduce 
human  institutions — home,  school,  state,  church — to  their 
ultimate  raison  d'  etre,  we  find  that  their  value  is  always 
measured  by  their  service  in  bringing  the  successive  gen- 
erations to  birth  and  to  the  best  and  highest  maturity 
possible.  The  child  is  the  focus  of  interest  for  every 
kind  of  social  and  humanistic  study.  Thus,  we  reach  the 
dual  goal  of  culture — nature  and  the  child,  or  the  child 
fitly  set  in  its  paradise.  These  are  the  cores  of  the  best 
education  which  has  or  ever  can  be  devised  for  young 
women  and  this,  as  I  believe,  conservative  kindergarten 
wiseacres  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding,  is,  if  we  in- 


no  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

terpret  his  letter  by  his  spirit,  precisely  "according  to 
Froebel,"  who  in  the  practical  realization  of  his  ideas  fell 
far  below  them,  as,  indeed,  most  of  us  do."* 

Although  Dr.  Hall  has  pointed  out  a  more  or  less  ideal 
condition,  yet  we  can,  by  taking  thought,  approximate  it. 
It  would  manifest  a  change  of  emphasis  in  our  programme 
and  a  different  viewpoint.  When  these  are  present,  we 
could,  with  determination,  accomplish  the  rest. 


*G.  Stanley  Hall.     Educational  Reforms,  pp.  8-10. 


CONCLUSION 

If  the  history  of  education  teaches  anything,  it  shows 
that  no  one  system  of  education  can  long  survive  and  meet 
the  views  of  changing  social  conditions,  unless  it,  too, 
changes  and  conforms  in  some  measure  to  the  differences 
found  in  life.  This,  for  many  years,  the  kindergarten  re- 
fused to  do.  To-day,  in  spite  of  some  lingering  opposi- 
tion, it  is  doing  and  making  slow  but  effective  changes  to 
meet  the  demands  made  on  it  by  contemporary  educational 
movements.  The  latest  of  these  is  the  Montessori  meth- 
od which  is  especially  designed  for  children  of  kindergar- 
ten age. 

It  seems  obvious  that  there  can  be  no  antagonism  be- 
tween two  agencies  which  are  both  working  for  the  good 
of  the  young  child  and  which  are  both  seeking  the  truth. 
But  there  will  necessarily  be  antagonism  and  misunder- 
standing if  instead  of  truth  each  side  is  seeking,  not  self- 
aggrandizement,  but  glory  for  a  leader.  Neither  side  can 
gain  much  in  mutual  understanding  or  further  the  inter- 
est of  the  child,  of  whom  we  talk  so  much,  as  long  as  one 
side  talks  of  "loyalty  to  Froebel,"  and  the  other  side  in- 
sists upon  personal  contact  with  a  leader  as  a  measure  of 
orthodoxy.  Such  a  point  of  view  will  never  work  for 
harmony  and  will  hinder,  not  help,  the  cause  for  which 
we  are  all  working. 

It  is  not  "who  said  it"  which  makes  a  principle  valid 
but  "is  it  true."  So  let  us  all  pray  for  the  time  when, 
with  open  minds,  we  may  seek  the  truth  and  not  any  one, 

ill 


ii2  THE  KINDERGARTEN  AND 

system  of  education. 

Therefore  it  is  the  part  of  wisdom  for  us  in  the  kin- 
dergarten work  to  scrutinize  this  new  system  from  across 
the  water  and  find  what  truth  there  is  in  it  that  we  may 
make  it  our  own. 

It  may  seem  that,  in  my  endeavor  to  suggest  remedies 
for  certain  evils  which  I  feel  prevail  in  the  kindergarten, 
I  have  been  too  severe  in  my  criticism.  Also  it  may  ap- 
pear that  I  consider  the  Montessori  method  flawless.  Such 
is  far  from  being  the  case  but  as  I  am  chiefly  interested 
in  the  kindergarten  I  have  limited  myself  to  suggestions 
of  certain  changes  which  I  feel  would  benefit  that  stage  of 
education.  As  my  purpose  has  not  been  to  modify  the 
Montessori  school  by  kindergarten  influence  but  to  effect 
certain  changes  in  the  kindergarten  through  the  influence 
of  Dr.  Montessori's  methods,  I  have  not  attempted  any 
strictures  on  her  school. 

It  has  been  my  purpose  in  writing  this  short  treatise 
to  show  that  the  kindergarten  stands  in  need  of  a  change 
of  method  and  procedure.  And  I  feel  that  such  a  change 
can  be  very  well  made  by  adopting  into  the  kindergarten 
Dr.  Montessori's  two  fundamental  principles  of  liberty 
and  education  founded  on  the  spontaneous  activities  of  the 
child.  It  is  only  begging  the  question  to  say  that  the 
kindergarten  has  always  stood  for  just  such  principles. 
In  theory  it  has  but  we  have  never  worked  them  out  to 
their  logical  conclusion  as  has  been  done  in  the  Montes- 
sori school. 

That  these  principles  are  good  we  cannot  deny  for 
they  are  our  principles  and  we  have  been  advocating  them 
for  many  years.  But  we  have  not  much  faith  in  them 


THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD          113 

unless  we  are  willing  to  put  them  to  the  test.  So  I  am 
not  pleading  for  less  faith  in  the  principles  of  Froebel  but 
for  more  faith.  For  such  confidence  in  the  integrity  of 
the  principles  laid  down  by  him  that  we  are  willing  to 
put  them  into  practice.  This  we  have  never  been  willing 
to  do  except  in  a  modified  way.  If,  in  so  doing,  we  must 
give  up  some  of  Froebers  practices  what  have  we  lost? 
The  principle  is  the  vital  point.  As  long  as  we  adhere  to 
that,  we  must  be  loyal  Froebelians,  if  there  is  any  comfort 
in  that. 

The  various  changes  which  are  being  made  in  the  kin- 
dergarten are  slight  changes  in  method.  But  the  general 
procedure  has  not  been  changed.  I  am  pleading  for  a 
general  reversal  of  procedure,  a  complete  change  in  meth- 
od and  an  addition  to  the  material,  as  well  as  the  discard- 
ing of  much  of  the  old  material. 

I  am  pleading  for  radical  changes  in  the  training-school 
that  the  teachers  we  send  out  may  be  open-minded  to  meet 
new  demands  made  on  them  and  to  test  all  principles  on 
their  merits.  We  need  teachers  who  are  not  wedded  to 
any  one  system  of  thought  but  who  are  keen  seekers  of 
the  truth.  We  need  young  women  who  are  not  adher- 
ents of  any  party  or  creed  but  who  are  willing  to  accept 
right  principles  wherever  they  may  be  found. 

Also  we  need  a  changed  curriculum  in  our  training- 
schools  that  we  may  turn  out  teachers  who  are  capable  of 
bringing  the  kindergarten  into  line  with  the  best  educa- 
tional thought.  We  need  more  emphasis  laid  on  music, 
dancing,  physiology  and  hygiene,  nature  study,  with  no 
less  time  spent  on  psychology,  child  study  and  the  history 
of  education.  Tb  avoid  over-crowding  the  curriculum, 


ii4          THE  MONTESSORI  METHOD 

the  time  for  training  might  very  well  be  extended  to  three 
years  and  less  time  spent  on  the  manipulation  of  material. 

The  kindergarten  is  such  a  wonderful  expression  of 
the  highest  ideals  of  education,  the  kindergarten  teacher 
stands  for  all  that  is  highest  in  such  ideals,  that  I  am  keen 
to  see  taken  over  such  a  vital  offering  as  has  just  been 
made  to  education  and  thus  enlarge  the  already  useful 
sphere  of  the  kindergarten. 

Such  changes  take  time  and  involve  the  education  not 
only  of  the  teacher  but  of  the  parents  and  the  public  as 
well.  We  have  never  failed  to  meet  such  demands  as 
have  been  laid  on  us  in  the  past;  we  have  spared  no  ef- 
fort to  educate  people  to  our  faith.  So  I  feel  that  when 
we  are  once  convinced  of  the  desirability  of  such  changes 
as  I  have  suggested,  we  will  not  stand  back  but  will  push 
on  until  the  educational  world  is  forced  to  concede  the 
intrinsic  value  of  our  viewpoint. 


DAY  USE 


RENEWALS  ONLY— TEL  NO. 


>w,  or 


LD2lA-60m-6,'69 
(J90968lO)476-A-32 


YB  OA898 


.... 

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